Ibsen Monologues for Auditions: Nora, Mrs. Alving, Helmer, and More

You want a speech with real weight, one where a person is fighting for something and you can feel the room hold its breath. Shakespeare is on everyone’s list, and the contemporary pieces in your folder feel a little thin. Someone in class says “try Ibsen,” and you search for an Ibsen monologue and find paywalls, one-line summaries, and three different wordings of the same Nora speech.

Ibsen is a good instinct. His people argue, confess, and lie to each other in plain prose, and the stakes are a marriage, a family secret, or a reputation. The catch is that his big speeches sit inside scenes, and the version you learn depends on which translation you picked up.

The short version: check whether the notice counts Ibsen as classical or contemporary, learn one free translation and stay with it, and choose a speech with a clear listener. Below are ten speeches from A Doll’s House and Ghosts with full notes (the setup, the want, a short excerpt, and a run time), plus three shorter alternates, one of them from Hedda Gabler. Every excerpt from these three plays is copied from the translations in our play library, which are free to use in the United States. The one line from An Enemy of the People comes from Project Gutenberg’s free translation.

Find out whether the notice counts Ibsen at all

Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House in 1879, so he sits right on the line between “classical” and “modern,” and schools draw that line in different places. Juilliard’s 2020-21 monologue FAQ says contemporary selections come from writers working roughly from Chekhov and Ibsen to the present day. Under that rule, Nora is your contemporary piece.

Other schools shut the door. The Lir Academy in Dublin, in its guide to choosing monologues, asks for a contemporary speech written and produced professionally from 1970 onwards, and adds, in so many words, “Not Ibsen” and “Not Chekhov.” Its classical piece has to come from Elizabethan or Jacobean drama, so Ibsen fits neither slot there.

So read the wording before you fall in love with a speech. If the notice says “a modern classic,” “a published play,” or “contemporary, roughly 20th century onward” with Ibsen named, you’re in good shape. If it gives dates that start in 1970, or asks for verse, pick something else. When the wording is vague, a one-line email to the school costs less than a wasted slot.

Learn from a translation you can read for free

Ibsen wrote in Danish, then the common written language of Denmark and Norway, as the Wikipedia entry on Ghosts notes, so whatever you say in the room is a translator’s English. The plays are long out of copyright, but each translation is a work of its own. The U.S. Copyright Office’s Circular 14 lists translations among the common derivative works and explains that the copyright in one never covers the public-domain material underneath it.

So translations published long ago can now be free to use in the US, while recent ones are still under copyright. Our library uses these, all from Standard Ebooks:

• A Doll’s House in R. Farquharson Sharp’s translation. Standard Ebooks’ edition page says it is thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States, and may still be under copyright elsewhere.
• Ghosts in William Archer’s translation, with the same note on its edition page.
• Hedda Gabler in the translation by Edmund Gosse and William Archer.

Modern versions are often sharper to say, and many productions use them. They’re under copyright, so buy or borrow the published script rather than copying it from a website. Whichever you choose, stick to one. Even small things move between versions: Sharp’s Nora calls her husband Torvald and her friend Christine, and a newer text may phrase every one of her lines differently.

Speeches for women

A note on times: we counted the words in the library text of each speech and divided by 150 words a minute, a conversational pace. Our monologue timer offers 120, 140, and 160 words a minute, so its average setting will give a slightly longer time. Ibsen’s people often speak faster when they’re scared and slower when they’re deciding, so treat every time as a starting estimate and check it with a run of your own.

Nora, “my great secret” (A Doll’s House, Act 1)

Nora has spent the scene proving to her old school friend Christine that she isn’t a child: years ago she secretly borrowed the money that saved Torvald’s life. Christine asks whether she will ever tell him. The speech begins Yes—someday, perhaps, after many years, drifts into how hard the installments are to meet, and stops to check how the news landed: Now, what do you think of my great secret, Christine?

What she wants: to be taken seriously by the one person she can tell. It’s about 210 words, roughly a minute and a half. Play the pride, not the danger. Nora thinks this is the best thing she has ever done, and the audience only learns later what it will cost her.

Nora, “There was no old gentleman at all” (A Doll’s House, Act 1)

A few lines later, Nora tells Christine the fantasy she used to escape into when the money ran short: a rich old admirer who would die and leave her everything. Then she admits There was no old gentleman at all, and spins into joy at the idea that she will soon be free of the debt, ending on Oh, it’s a wonderful thing to be alive and be happy.

What she wants: to share her relief with someone, out loud, at last. It’s about 160 words, a little over a minute. This is the lightest Nora you’ll find, and a good choice when a panel asks for something warm, or when you need a contrast to a heavier second piece.

Nora, “He called me his doll-child” (A Doll’s House, Act 3)

The famous last scene. Helmer has forgiven Nora, very pleased with himself, and she has changed out of her party costume and asked him to sit down and talk. She explains, quietly, what her marriage has been: first her father’s doll, then her husband’s. He called me his doll-child, she says, and then I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald.

Join two speeches by cutting Helmer’s short protest between them, and you have about 185 words, roughly a minute and a quarter. What she wants: for him to finally hear her. Don’t shout it. The power is that she has stopped performing. For a second cut, her later speech about being his little skylark runs about 130 words.

One fact helps you play this scene. When the play went to Germany, Ibsen wrote an alternative ending in which Nora sees her children, collapses, and the curtain falls with the implication that she stays. According to the Wikipedia entry on the play, he did it partly because his German agent felt the original would not play well there, and he called the new version a “barbaric outrage.” He wanted her to go. Play the speech as someone who already knows she is leaving.

Mrs. Alving, “Ghosts!” (Ghosts, Act 2)

At the end of Act 1, Mrs. Alving heard her son Oswald with the maid, Regina, exactly as her late husband once was with Regina’s mother. Now, in Act 2, she looks back on that moment, and Pastor Manders is shocked at how she talks. She tells him what haunts her: But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. Inherited ideas, dead beliefs, and a whole country so pitifully afraid of the light.

What she wants: to make Manders see that the rules he lives by are dead things she can no longer obey. It’s about 120 words, under a minute, which makes it ideal for a short call. The Norwegian title, as the Wikipedia entry on Ghosts notes, means something like “ones who return,” things that come back. That is the image she reaches for.

Mrs. Alving, “This shall come to an end!” (Ghosts, Act 1)

Mrs. Alving finally tells Manders the truth about her marriage: the drinking she sat through to keep her husband home, and the night she heard him with the housemaid. In the second half she takes control: then I swore to myself: This shall come to an end! She sent her little boy away to keep him from the house, and ends No one knows what that cost me.

Join two speeches by cutting Manders’ short line between them, and you have about 225 words, roughly a minute and a half; the second speech alone is about 150 words, a minute. What she wants: to be believed, after years of everyone believing her husband instead. Keep it cold and exact. She has had years to decide how she would say it.

Speeches for men

Helmer, “my frightened little singing-bird” (A Doll’s House, Act 3)

Helmer has read Krogstad’s letter, raged at Nora, then received the bond back and decided he is safe. Now he forgives her, generously, with his whole heart. She has gone into the next room to change, so most of the speech is spoken to a doorway: I have broad wings to shelter you under. It ends when she walks back in, not ready for bed but changed into her everyday dress.

What he wants: to put everything back the way it was, with himself as her protector. It’s about 265 words, close to two minutes, so you may cut it. Don’t play a villain. He means every word, which is what makes the next scene land, and why it’s one of the best speeches for men in the play.

Krogstad, the date on the bond (A Doll’s House, Act 1)

Krogstad, the clerk Helmer plans to fire, has come to Nora with the loan document. Her father, who was supposed to guarantee it, died on the 29th of September, and his signature is dated the 2nd of October. It is a discrepancy, isn’t it? He lays it out step by step, politely, and lets her walk into the trap.

What he wants: for Nora to realize, without his saying it, that he knows she forged the signature. It’s about 130 words, under a minute. Play it as a man doing his job well, not a melodrama villain. Pair it with his Act 2 speech, I want to rehabilitate myself, Mrs. Helmer, about 110 words, if you want the man underneath the threat.

Pastor Manders, “a poor instrument in a Higher Hand” (Ghosts, Act 1)

Years ago, the young Mrs. Alving ran from her husband to Manders, and he sent her back. Now he reminds her how right he was: I was but a poor instrument in a Higher Hand. He runs through a list of questions, each certain the answer is yes, then moves on to the next of her errors.

What he wants: to be thanked, and to keep his version of events intact. It’s about 135 words, under a minute. The fun is that the audience is about to learn every one of his “yes” answers is wrong. Play him sincere and kind, and let the play do the irony.

Engstrand, “a man’s conscience” (Ghosts, Act 2)

The carpenter Engstrand has been caught: Manders has learned that he married a pregnant housemaid for money and passed her daughter off as his own. Engstrand talks his way out of it with a story of honest charity and humble piety, and ends a man’s conscience isn’t always as clean as it might be. By the next line, Manders is shaking his hand.

What he wants: to win back the pastor’s good opinion. It’s about 130 words, under a minute, and it’s one of the few comic pieces in the play. Keep the humility thick and the eyes alert. He’s playing Manders, and he’s winning.

Oswald, “the joy of life” (Ghosts, Act 2)

Oswald, home from Paris and already ill, tries to explain to his mother why he can’t stay. At home, people are raised to believe life is a punishment; abroad, he says, people feel joy just breathing. His paintings, he tells her, are always, always upon the joy of life? And that’s why he’s afraid of staying with her.

What he wants: for his mother to understand what the gloom of this house is doing to him. It’s only about 80 words, roughly half a minute, which makes it useful when a call asks for 30 seconds. Let the joy be real, because the fear under it is what the play is about.

Why Hedda has no monologue

Search for a Hedda Gabler monologue and you’ll find plenty. Look at the play and you won’t. The Wikipedia entry on Hedda Gabler notes that the role is considered one of the great dramatic roles and has been described as a female Hamlet, but our library’s count shows her longest single speech is under 60 words. The part is built out of short, sharp exchanges.

So a “Hedda monologue” is almost always several of her lines stitched together, with other people’s lines cut. That can work, as long as the thought still runs and you can name the scene. Check the rules first: the Lir Academy’s guide tells applicants not to assemble a monologue from lines of dialogue where another character’s interjections are an important part of the scene. A short line from Act 4 shows what you’re working with: Lövborg, she says, had the courage to live his life after his own fashion. The whole speech is about 50 words: a great moment, not a monologue.

If you love the play, two better routes. Work a short duologue instead, which our library page makes easy to read in full. Or for a man, take Lövborg’s Act 3 speech about a man who comes home and says And I have lost the child—utterly lost it. It’s about 80 words, roughly half a minute. The “child” is his lost manuscript, which Hedda has and is hiding from him.

Want a big speech for a man from another Ibsen play? Dr. Stockmann’s public meeting in Act 4 of An Enemy of the People is a famous one: The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! It isn’t in our library yet, but Sharp’s translation is free on Project Gutenberg. The full speech runs long, so plan a cut.

Play the scene the speech came from

Every speech above answers someone. Nora answers Christine’s teasing and Helmer’s forgiveness, Mrs. Alving answers Manders, and Engstrand answers an accusation. A panel can tell when a speech is played to the air. So put your listener in one clear spot, close to you and just off the panel’s eyeline, and play to change them.

Then find the turn, the line where the tactic changes. In the Act 1 Nora speech it’s the moment she stops dreaming about being old and asks what Christine thinks. In Mrs. Alving’s Act 1 confession it’s “This shall come to an end!” In Helmer’s it’s the doorway. Start your cut on a full sentence, keep the turn, and keep the last line.

For more on cutting, our guide on how to cut a monologue walks through it, and our free monologue timer checks the length at different paces. For pieces from Ibsen’s contemporaries, see our lists of Chekhov monologues and the dramatic monologues page.

Learn it with the other voices in the room

Because these speeches come out of conversation, learn the cue as carefully as the speech. Read the whole scene aloud a few times with the other parts in. Then say the speech in your own words, one sentence per thought, before you go word-perfect. If you know why Krogstad says the dates in that order, you won’t drop one.

In Offbook, upload the scene in the translation you’ve chosen, pick your role, and realistic voices read Helmer, Christine, or Manders, then wait while you say your lines. When you’re ready, hide your own lines while everyone else’s stay on screen, or swap your words for first-letter cues on the way to a blank page, as the video below shows.

Our free first-letter memorizer does the cue step with any speech you paste in, and our guide on how to memorize a monologue has the full method. Run it standing up, at full voice, the way you’ll do it in the room.

Questions actors ask

Is Ibsen classical or contemporary for an audition?

It depends on the school. Juilliard’s 2020-21 monologue FAQ puts Ibsen at the start of contemporary; the Lir Academy rules him out of both of its categories. Read the notice’s dates and examples, and ask if it isn’t clear.

Which Ibsen translation is free to use?

Sharp’s A Doll’s House, Archer’s Ghosts, and Gosse and Archer’s Hedda Gabler are free in our play library; Standard Ebooks says its editions are thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. Sharp’s An Enemy of the People is on Project Gutenberg. Modern translations are under copyright, so buy or borrow the published script.

Can I use a Nora speech if everyone else does?

Yes, if you can say in one sentence what Nora wants from the person she’s talking to. The Act 1 speeches are heard far less often than the last scene, and they show a different, lighter Nora.