How to format your monologue
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Anna Deavere Smith captures the poetry and music of each individual in her formatting of the monologue.
Below are monologues as they appear in the script of Twilight: Los Angeles 1992
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Think about how to curate your subject's voice in the layout of the monologue.
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“A Roar”
Jessye Norman, opera singer
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
0:56:50 - 0:59:39 minute mark on video
But I think that if I were
a person
already you know a teenager
sort of a youngster
20 or something
And I felt that I were being heard for the first time
It would not be singing as we know it It would be a roar.
Oh I think it would be a roar
Oh it would come
Oh it would come from the bottom of my feet
It would be I really think It would be like a lion
just roaring
it wouldn’t be words
it would just be
like the earth’s first utterance.
I really do feel so.
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“Limbo”
Twilight Bey, activist
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
1:23:00 minute mark on video
So a lot of times when I’ve brought up ideas to my homeboys
they say Twilight
that’s before your time
that’s something you can’t do now
when I talked about the truce back in 1988
that was something they considered before its time
yet in 1992
we made it
realistic
so to me it’s like I’m stuck in limbo
like the sun is stuck between night and day
in the twilight hours
you know
I’m in an area not many people exist
Night time to me
is like a lack of sun and
I don’t affiliate
darkness with anything negative I affiliate darkness of what was first
because it was first
and then relative to my complexion
I am a dark individual
and with me stuck in limbo
I see darkness as myself
I see the light as knowledge and the wisdom of the world and
understanding others and
in order for me to be a true human being
I can’t forever dwell in darkness
I can’t forever dwell in the idea
just identifying with people like me and understanding me and mine
So twilight
is
that time
between day and night
limbo
I call it limbo.