Classic Scenes for Two Older Actors, From Public-Domain Plays

Your class is doing scene work this term, and the teacher has paired you with the other person in the room who remembers when phones had cords. Every scene book on the shelf is full of twenty-somethings breaking up in apartments. The ones written for mature actors are modern plays, so you can’t photocopy them, and half the lists online turn out to be monologues.

The old plays are kinder to you than that. Comedy and drama from before 1930 are full of long marriages, old friends, widows, nurses, and country justices, and the scenes between them are some of the best writing in the plays. Better still, the texts are free.

The short version: below are five two-person scenes where at least one part is written older and the scene turns on the years, from She Stoops to Conquer, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry IV, Part 2, Uncle Vanya, and Ghosts. Each comes with its first and last lines, what each character wants, how the words split, about how long it runs, and a cut where you need one. Every quoted line was copied from the Project Gutenberg edition named below. For solo speeches, see our classical monologues for older actors.

Pick scenes where the text says the age

A part is older when the play says so, not when a casting note does. Look for the lines that settle it: a husband doing sums about his wife’s age, a friend counting the dead, a love letter that tells her neither of you is young. When the words carry the age, you don’t have to play it. You can play the person, and the years show up in what they want and what they’ve given up on.

That matters, because a common trap with older parts is to act old: the shuffle, the quaver, the hand on the back. Our guide to playing older or younger covers why that reads as a costume. In every scene below, both people are busy with something urgent. Mrs. Hardcastle wants a trip to London. Mistress Page wants revenge. Shallow wants to talk about his youth. None of them is thinking about being old.

Get the same free text as your partner

Old plays come in many editions, and editors disagree about spelling, punctuation, and where scenes start. Pick one text and both learn from it. All four used here are free on Project Gutenberg: Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, Shakespeare’s complete works for Merry Wives and Henry IV, Part 2, a translation of Uncle Vanya, and William Archer’s translation of Ghosts.

Translations matter most. The Gutenberg Uncle Vanya spells the doctor ASTROFF and has the nurse offer a little tea; our Uncle Vanya play page uses a different translation with different words. Either is fine, as long as you and your partner hold the same one.

A note on the times. We counted the spoken words in each scene, stage directions out, and divided by 140 words a minute, the pace our acting scripts to practice page uses. Played with real pauses, these run longer, and older parts tend to earn their pauses.

Comedy: two marriages and two old friends

Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle: the age fight (She Stoops to Conquer, Act 1)

A man and a woman. The play opens on a couple who’ve been married long enough to have the same argument every winter. She wants a trip to town; he wants everything to stay as it is. Then the talk turns to her son Tony, and she defends him against every charge. It starts on her I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you’re very particular. and ends on his a very consumptive figure, truly., as Tony crosses the stage. It’s about 583 words, a little over 4 minutes, with Mrs. Hardcastle speaking about 342 and Hardcastle about 241.

HARDCASTLE: And I love it. I love everything that’s old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and I believe, Dorothy (taking her hand), you’ll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

MRS. HARDCASTLE: Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you’re for ever at your Dorothys and your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I’ll be no Joan, I promise you. I’m not so old as you’d make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that.

HARDCASTLE: Let me see; twenty added to twenty makes just fifty and seven.

Source: Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 383).

What each wants: she wants to be younger than he says, and to win the point about Tony. He wants to tease her, and under the teasing, to say he loves her. Play the hand-taking as real affection, so her brush-off has something to push away. The second half is a run of short, fast lines about Tony’s health; pick up every cue, and let his last joke land on the offstage halloo. The same couple appears briefly in our monologues guide, but the scene is the better use of them.

Mistress Page and Mistress Ford: the twin letters (The Merry Wives of Windsor, 2.1)

Two women. Falstaff has sent the same love letter to two married friends, and his letter to Mistress Page opens its pitch with You are not young, no more am I. She reads it alone, furious; then Mistress Ford arrives with news of her own. The duet runs from Ford’s Mistress Page! Trust me, I was going to your house. to Page’s Come hither., just before the husbands come on. It’s about 600 words, a little over 4 minutes, and splits almost evenly: Page about 312, Ford about 288.

MISTRESS PAGE: Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What is it? Dispense with trifles. What is it?

MISTRESS FORD: If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.

MISTRESS PAGE: What? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.

Source: William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, Scene 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 100).

What each wants: Ford wants advice and, honestly, a little admiration for being pursued. Page wants to top her, and then to plan the revenge. The engine is the moment Page produces her own copy, here’s the twin brother of thy letter; hold the second letter back until that line. If you want a longer piece, start on Page’s solo reading of the letter: the scene then runs about 854 words, around 6 minutes, and Page’s share grows to about 566.

Shallow and Silence: the mad days (Henry IV, Part 2, 3.2)

Two men. Two country cousins meet on a morning when Falstaff is due to come recruiting (the recruits are onstage, but they don’t speak until later in the scene), and Justice Shallow can’t stop talking about his wild youth at the Inns of Court, or about who has died since. It runs from Shallow’s Come on, come on, come on. to Silence’s Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think. That’s about 432 words, around 3 minutes, and very uneven: Shallow speaks about 360 words to Silence’s 72.

SILENCE: We shall all follow, cousin.

SHALLOW: Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure. Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all, all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

SILENCE: By my troth, I was not there.

SHALLOW: Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?

SILENCE: Dead, sir.

Source: William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2 (Project Gutenberg eBook 100).

What each wants: Shallow wants to be the man he was, and to keep death at arm’s length with talk of bullocks and ewes. Silence wants to get a word in and mostly can’t. The comedy is the jump from mortality to the cattle market and back, so don’t bridge it; let each change of subject be sudden. Later in the same scene Silence pins the age down: That’s fifty-five year ago. The split makes Silence a gift for an actor who listens well, and a good pairing when one partner has less time to learn.

Drama: what the years have done

Marina and Astroff: have I changed? (Uncle Vanya, Act 1)

A woman and a man. Chekhov’s stage direction calls Marina a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, knitting at the tea table. The doctor has known her about eleven years, ten of them overworked, and he feels old. He asks her the one question he shouldn’t. It runs from her Take a little tea, my son. to his You have spoken the truth., before Voitski comes out of the house. About 474 words, around 3 and a half minutes, with Astroff speaking about 382 and Marina about 92.

ASTROFF: Have I changed much since then?

MARINA: Oh, yes. You were handsome and young then, and now you are an old man and not handsome any more. You drink, too.

Source: Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, Act 1 (Project Gutenberg eBook 1756).

What each wants: Astroff wants someone to tell him his life hasn’t been wasted. Marina wants him to eat something. She isn’t cruel; she simply tells the truth, the way an old nurse does, and then offers food. Her last line, Man is forgetful, but God remembers., is the comfort he came for, so let it take its time. Marina’s part is small but carries the scene’s weight: it suits an older actor who wants a short, strong part, opposite a man who feels older than he is.

Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders: ghosts (Ghosts, Act 2)

A woman and a man. After dinner, the widow and the pastor she once ran to are alone. She has a grown son and nineteen years of marriage behind her, and the secret of that marriage is out. He argues for duty; she has stopped believing in it. The full scene, from his I suppose he cannot overhear us in there? to his could so hide the truth from me!, just before Engstrand knocks, is about 1,918 words and nearly 14 minutes, so cut it.

For class, start on her Do not let us talk in such general terms. and stop on his I am what I always was. That’s about 863 words, around 6 minutes, Mrs. Alving about 511 and Manders about 352. For a short slot, start on Let me tell you what I mean. and keep the same ending: about 390 words, under 3 minutes, which opens on her speech about ghosts.

MRS. ALVING: Call it rather your most pitiful defeat.

MANDERS: It was my greatest victory, Helen--the victory over myself.

MRS. ALVING: It was a crime against us both.

Source: Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts, Act 2, translated by William Archer (Project Gutenberg eBook 8121).

What each wants: she wants him to admit what his advice cost them both. He wants to stay the man who was right. The age is the point here: two people looking back, decades later, at the choice that shaped their lives. Play each time he calls her Helen as a crack in his manners. For more from the same play, our Ibsen scenes for two actors covers the scenes with Regina and Oswald.

The picks at a glance

• Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle, She Stoops to Conquer, Act 1: a man and a woman, comedy, about 4 minutes, Mrs. Hardcastle a bit more.
• Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, The Merry Wives of Windsor, 2.1: two women, comedy, about 4 minutes, almost even (6 with the letter).
• Shallow and Silence, Henry IV, Part 2, 3.2: two men, comedy with an edge, about 3 minutes, mostly Shallow.
• Marina and Astroff, Uncle Vanya, Act 1: a woman and a man, gentle drama, about 3 and a half minutes, mostly Astroff.
• Mrs. Alving and Manders, Ghosts, Act 2: a woman and a man, drama, 6-minute or 3-minute cuts.

Want something with a sharper tongue? Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals are an aunt and a father planning a match, and our Sheridan and Goldsmith scenes guide sets out where that scene starts and ends. More free plays are in our plays library.

Acting later in life is good exercise for memory

Many older actors worry about memory. The research on acting itself is encouraging. Helga and Tony Noice, who have studied how actors learn roles, and a colleague ran a month-long program with 124 adults aged 60 to 84, most of them not actors: those who took acting classes improved their scores on memory and problem-solving measures more than an art group or a control group, and the gains were still there four months later.

A later study took the same kind of acting classes into subsidized retirement homes, with 122 residents. After eight one-hour classes over four weeks, the acting group improved significantly more on most of the memory and thinking measures than a singing group and a group with no classes. In the earlier study, CultureCase’s summary says, the classes aimed to get people imaginatively involved in a dramatic situation, and they performed for each other. That’s a good description of rehearsing a scene.

• Learn what you want in each exchange before you learn the words. A line you understand is a line you can find again.
• Learn the cue with the line. In a two-hander, every line you say is an answer to the one before it.
• Work in short daily sessions rather than one long one, and test yourself instead of rereading.
• Say it out loud, on your feet, from the first day. Prose like Goldsmith’s and Archer’s Ibsen sits best in the mouth, not on the page.

Our guide on how to learn lines after 40 goes deeper on each of these.

Rehearse it before you meet your partner

Scene partners in community theater and adult classes rarely have the same free evenings. The trick is to arrive at your first run already knowing your cues, so the time together goes to the acting.

In Offbook, upload the scene from your Gutenberg text and pick your part, and realistic voices read the other one, then wait while you say your line before cueing the next. You can slow the other voice down, or add a pause before any line, so Marina’s last answer gets the silence it needs. As the video below shows, you can then hide your lines, or swap them for first-letter cues, and test yourself from the cue alone.

For a free start with no account, our first-letter memorizer turns your part into first-letter cues, and the script line counter shows how a pasted scene splits between you. For a week-by-week plan, see how to prepare a scene for acting class.

Questions actors ask

What are good scenes for two older actors?

For comedy, Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle in Act 1 of She Stoops to Conquer, or Mistress Page and Mistress Ford in Act 2 of The Merry Wives of Windsor. For drama, Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders in Act 2 of Ibsen’s Ghosts. All three are free to copy from Project Gutenberg.

Is there a classical scene for two older women?

Yes. The twin-letters scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor is the one to try: two married friends, both told by the same letter that they’re not young, splitting the words almost evenly over about 4 minutes.

Is there a scene for two older men?

Shallow and Silence in Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2. It’s short, funny, and sad, and Shallow does most of the talking, so it suits a pair where one actor wants the bigger part.

Can we use these scenes without paying for rights?

The texts named here are free on Project Gutenberg and in the public domain in the United States, so you can copy them for class. A modern translation of Chekhov or Ibsen may still be under copyright, which is one more reason to use the free one.

Can I rehearse a scene without my partner?

Yes. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and Offbook’s voices read your partner’s lines and wait for yours. You can also listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere, which helps fix the cues in your ear.