Oscar Wilde Monologues for Auditions: Comic and Serious Speeches With Run Times

The notice asks for a comic piece, and you’d like something with more polish than a sitcom speech. Wilde is the obvious name. Then you search. Many lists give you the same two women from Earnest, often with no run time or setup.

Wilde is better stocked than that. His four society plays are full of people who talk in paragraphs: aunts with opinions, young women with theories, fathers with demands, and a villain who reads other people’s letters out loud.

The short version: check whether the notice counts Wilde as classical or contemporary, read the whole play before you pick, and choose a speech where the character wants something from the person in front of them. Below are thirteen speeches, eight for women and five for men, each with the setup, the want, a short excerpt, and an approximate run time. Every excerpt was checked word for word against the Project Gutenberg text of the play.

Ask whether the panel counts Wilde as classical

Wilde sits on a border. Juilliard’s 2020-21 monologue FAQs said classical selections could come from the Greeks and other pre-20th-century writers “whose text is poetic or heightened,” and that contemporary selections ran roughly from Chekhov and Ibsen to the present day.

Wilde’s society plays date from the 1890s, the same decade as Chekhov’s The Seagull. They’re in prose, but it’s some of the most shaped prose in English. One panel will hear that as heightened text, and another will file it with Chekhov. If the notice doesn’t say, ask, or bring Wilde as your contemporary piece and keep a verse speech for the classical slot.

Length matters as much as label. Juilliard’s 2020-21 FAQ asked for about two minutes and said a few seconds over was fine. Most of the speeches below come in well under that, which leaves room for a breath before you start and a moment after you finish.

Read the play before you pick the speech

Wilde’s lines land because of what’s around them. Lady Bracknell’s opinions are funny because she says them to a nephew who is lying to her. Mabel’s complaint about Tommy is funny because she’s in love with someone else. If you learn the speech without the scene, you’ll play the jokes and miss the situation.

Know which Earnest you’re reading, too. The British Library’s catalogue of Wilde’s manuscript describes it as a four-act comedy, first performed at the St James’s Theatre on 14 February 1895, and notes that a three-act version was performed at the producer George Alexander’s request, with Wilde’s agreement. The three-act text is the one on Project Gutenberg, and all of the Earnest excerpts here come from it.

Our play library lists every part in all four plays, with word counts and the longest speeches. To read the scenes before and after your speech, use the Project Gutenberg texts of Earnest, An Ideal Husband, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and A Woman of No Importance. The speech should change something, and you need to know what.

Speeches for women

A note on times: we counted the words in each speech in our library text, without stage directions, and divided by 150 words a minute, a conversational pace. Wilde’s comedy usually wants a quicker tempo than that, so treat every time as a ceiling, then check it with your own run and our free monologue timer.

Lady Bracknell, on Mr. Bunbury (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)

Algernon has just excused himself from her dinner party because his invalid friend Bunbury, who doesn’t exist, is ill again. Lady Bracknell has no sympathy for the sick, and less for anyone who upsets her seating plan. What she wants: Algernon at her reception on Saturday, arranging the music. Her medical opinion is brisk: I consider it morbid. So is her philosophy: Health is the primary duty of life.

It’s 172 words, about 70 seconds. It’s also one of the few long Lady Bracknell speeches that isn’t the handbag scene, so the panel is less likely to compare you with every Bracknell before you.

Lady Bracknell, “The line is immaterial” (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)

This is the famous one. Jack, hoping to marry her daughter, has just admitted that he was found as a baby in a hand-bag in the cloak-room at Victoria Station, on the Brighton line. She begins The line is immaterial. and then delivers her verdict on his prospects. What she wants: to end the engagement without lowering her voice.

At 121 words, it’s under a minute. It’s a fine pick with one known risk: it follows the most famous line in the play, and the section on the handbag below explains how to handle that.

Lady Bracknell, “Come here. Sit down.” (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3)

She has chased her runaway daughter to Jack’s house in the country by luggage train, and she arrives just as Gwendolen announces the engagement. What she wants: to take control of the room at once. Her first order comes with a diagnosis: Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young. It’s 145 words, about a minute.

Gwendolen, “an age of ideals” (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)

Jack has finally stammered out that he admires her. Gwendolen tells him she knew, and that she loves him for his name, Ernest, which isn’t his name. She opens her theory with We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. What she wants: to accept him on her terms. It’s 125 words, about 50 seconds, and our guide to short comedic monologues has more on playing it.

Mabel Chiltern, on Tommy’s proposals (An Ideal Husband, Act 2)

Mabel tells her sister-in-law, Lady Chiltern, about Tommy Trafford, who proposes to her at every opportunity. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. She stopped one attempt at lunch by announcing that she was a bimetallist, without knowing what it means. What she wants: for Lady Chiltern to speak to Tommy about his methods, which is exactly what she asks for at the end.

It’s 297 words, about two minutes at most, so time it, and trim one proposal if you run long. The speech is a list of proposals, so it cuts cleanly between them.

Mrs. Cheveley, alone in Lord Goring’s rooms (An Ideal Husband, Act 3)

Left alone by the butler, the play’s blackmailer wanders around Lord Goring’s room and goes through his letters. Gutenberg’s text gives her the business: she looks about the room, takes up the letters, puts one down, picks it up, and reads it. She comments as she goes: Men always look so silly when they are caught. And: Romance should never begin with sentiment.

What she wants: something she can use. She finds it in a note from Lady Chiltern. It’s 171 words, a little over a minute plus the business. It’s a rare Wilde soliloquy, so you don’t need to imagine a listener, and the letter gives you something real to handle.

Mrs. Allonby, the Ideal Man (A Woman of No Importance, Act 2)

Lady Stutfield asks Mrs. Allonby to describe the Ideal Man, and she answers in four speeches. Pick the last one, which Lady Caroline cues with As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills and compliments. It starts He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. The rest follows from there, through scenes, telegrams, and partings, ending with variations.

What she wants: to dazzle the other women. It’s 260 words, about a minute and 45 seconds. It’s one long build, so pace it in stages and keep something for the end.

For a serious piece: Mrs. Erlynne, “Believe what you choose about me” (Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act 3)

Not every Wilde speech is a joke. In Lord Darlington’s rooms, Mrs. Erlynne begs Lady Windermere to go home to her husband and child, without telling her she’s her mother. Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment’s sorrow. Our page for “Believe what you choose about me” has the full text and ends it at “your place is with your child,” which still runs about two and a half minutes, so plan a cut.

Speeches for men

Algernon, on dining with Aunt Augusta (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1)

Jack tells Algernon he’d better dine with his aunt. Algernon explains, point by point, why he won’t: once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations, he says, and he knows exactly who she’ll seat him next to. Then he changes the subject to Jack’s secret: I want to tell you the rules.

What he wants: Jack’s company tonight, and Jack’s secret. It’s 172 words, about 70 seconds. Our one-minute monologues guide shows where to trim it for a strict minute.

Jack, on Algernon’s deception (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3)

Lady Bracknell can’t believe her nephew Algernon would lie. Jack lists the evidence: Algernon came to his house pretending to be Jack’s brother, drank his wine, charmed his ward, and then He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured every single muffin. What he wants: Lady Bracknell to see Algernon as a villain. It’s 152 words, about a minute, and it works because Jack is completely sincere about the muffins.

Lord Caversham, “You have got to get married” (An Ideal Husband, Act 3)

Lord Goring’s father has come round at ten o’clock at night to tell his son to marry. He has views on the alternative: Bachelors are not fashionable any more. They are a damaged lot. What he wants: an engagement, and soon. It’s 129 words, under a minute, and a strong choice for an older actor who wants something comic.

Sir Robert Chiltern, the Baron’s gospel (An Ideal Husband, Act 2)

For a serious piece. Sir Robert tells his friend Lord Goring how, as a young man, he was seduced by Baron Arnheim’s philosophy of power, what he calls the gospel of gold. It’s part of his confession about the secret that’s about to ruin him. What he wants: Goring to understand why he did it. It’s 205 words, about a minute and 20 seconds, and it builds to one long sentence that needs real breath support.

Lord Illingworth, on discontent (A Woman of No Importance, Act 2)

Mrs. Arbuthnot accuses Lord Illingworth of making her son discontented. He agrees, cheerfully: Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. Then he turns on her for wanting to ruin the boy’s career now that it turns out he’s the boy’s father. What he wants: to win the argument without raising his voice. It’s 116 words, about 45 seconds, charming on top and cold underneath.

For speeches by Chekhov and Shaw, see our modern classics page and our comedic monologues page.

Play it seriously and the lines will be funny

The trap with Wilde is to play the wit. You land on every epigram, look pleased with yourself, and wait for the laugh. It almost never comes, because the character on stage doesn’t think they’re being witty. They think they’re being reasonable.

Brian Bedford, who played Lady Bracknell in his own production of Earnest on Broadway in 2011, put it plainly. As WNYC reported, his view was that the characters themselves must take the high comedy absolutely seriously, and that everyone in the play starts with the language.

So find the want and play it straight. Lady Bracknell isn’t joking that health is a duty; she means it, and she’s annoyed. Jack isn’t joking about the muffins; he’s outraged. Then trust the sentence. Wilde builds his lines to a last word, so keep your energy up to the end of the sentence and let the final word land without leaning on it.

A good test: say the speech to a friend as if you were telling them something that actually happened to you. If it’s funny that way, it’ll be funny in the room. Our guide to comedic timing has more on setups and the turn word.

Leave the handbag at home, or reinvent it

One Wilde line is a monologue trap in itself. Edith Evans’s delivery of “A hand-bag?” became so famous that critic Alastair Macaulay, in his essay “Edith Evans’s Handbag”, calls it an obstacle course for every Lady Bracknell since.

The same essay reports Judi Dench’s experience at the National Theatre in 1982: after the line, audiences would let out a disappointed sound and shift in their seats, because she hadn’t done it the way they expected. A panel may be listening for it too.

The exchange itself is two people trading lines, not a speech, so it won’t work as a monologue. The speech that follows it, “The line is immaterial,” is yours to use. Start on that line, not on “A hand-bag?”, play Lady Bracknell’s want, which is to end the engagement, and let the famous echo take care of itself.

Learn the speech with its cue

A Wilde speech is an answer. Lady Bracknell answers Algernon’s excuse, Gwendolen answers Jack’s stammer, and Mrs. Allonby answers Lady Caroline’s dry summing-up. Learn the cue line as well as your own first line, so you start from something instead of starting cold.

In Offbook, you upload the scene, pick your role, and realistic voices read every other character, then wait while you say your lines. When you’re ready, hide your own lines while the others stay on screen, or switch your words to first-letter cues, as the video below shows.

First-letter cues suit Wilde especially well, because his word order is the joke. Here is Lady Bracknell’s line from Act 1 as cues:

H i t p d o l.

Health is the primary duty of life. (Lady Bracknell, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1, Project Gutenberg text)

If you can say the line from those seven letters, you have the word order, and the word order is what makes it funny. Our free first-letter memorizer does this with any speech you paste in, and our guide on how to memorize a monologue has the full method.

Questions actors ask

Should I use an English accent for Wilde?

It’s up to you, and the notice. Juilliard’s 2020-21 FAQ said that if you felt a piece warranted an accent, you were welcome but not required to use one. A clear voice with crisp consonants does more for Wilde than an accent you have to think about while you act.

Can I cut the other character’s lines out of a Wilde speech?

Often, yes, when the interruption is short and the thought runs on. Several of these speeches have no interruptions at all. When you cut, keep each sentence whole, since Wilde’s jokes usually sit at the end of the sentence, and check the time again afterward.

Do I need to bring a prop for Mrs. Cheveley’s letter?

Check the notice; many panels prefer no props. A folded sheet of paper is usually enough if props are allowed, and you can mime it if they aren’t. What matters is that you read the letter as if for the first time.

Can I rehearse a Wilde speech on my phone?

Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere. With Offbook, listening to the scene on the way to the audition keeps the cue line in your ear.