Shaw Monologues for Men: Ten Speeches From Higgins to Undershaft

You’ve done the Shakespeare. Now the notice wants something else from a published play, and you’d like a man who talks his way through a problem instead of brooding about it. Shaw wrote dozens of them: professors, arms dealers, poets, soldiers, and a retired sea captain who says exactly what he thinks.

The catch is that Shaw’s men talk a lot. Plenty of his big speeches run three minutes or more, and it’s tempting to stitch several turns of a scene into one. You need a speech that stands on its own, fits the slot, and comes from a text you can legally copy.

The short version: check how the notice files Shaw, learn from one public-domain edition, and pick a speech where you can say in one sentence what he’s trying to win. Below are ten speeches for men from seven plays, each with the setup, the want, a few of its lines, and an estimated run time. Every line quoted here comes from the text in our play library, which uses Standard Ebooks’ public-domain editions.

Find out which box Shaw goes in

Shaw sits on a border, and audition notices draw it in different places. Juilliard’s monologue FAQ defines contemporary selections as coming from writers working in the 20th and 21st centuries, roughly from Chekhov and Ibsen on. Its classical pieces may come from Shakespeare, the Greeks, and other pre-20th-century writers whose text is poetic or heightened. Shaw isn’t named, but he was writing well into the 20th century, and even his 1890s plays are prose, not the poetic or heightened text Juilliard asks of classical pieces.

Others file him the opposite way. Nick Hern Books’ Classical Monologues for Men, edited by Marina Caldarone, includes three Shaw speeches in its section on the 19th and early 20th centuries: Don Juan from Man and Superman, Duvallet from Fanny’s First Play, and Mangan from Heartbreak House. So a book sold as classical treats him as classical.

And some schools leave him no slot at all. The Lir Academy in Dublin, in Shaw’s home city, asks in its speech guide for an Elizabethan or Jacobean classical piece and a contemporary one from about the last 50 years, and says plays from the early 20th century, by writers such as Ibsen and Chekhov, are not suitable. If a notice just says “a speech from a published play,” Shaw is a strong pick. If it says “classical” without defining it, ask.

Copy from a public-domain edition

In the United States, published works pass into the public domain by year. The Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain’s Public Domain Day 2026 page says works from 1930 opened up this January. Every play on this list is older than that. The newest, Saint Joan, was first performed in New York in December 1923, according to its Wikipedia entry.

Outside the US, rules differ. Standard Ebooks says on its edition of Pygmalion that the ebook is thought to be free of copyright in the US but may still be under copyright in other countries, and its transcription comes from Project Gutenberg. If you live elsewhere, check the edition’s notice before you copy or share it.

One more rule: learn from one edition and stay with it. Shaw punctuated in his own way, with colons and semicolons where you’d expect full stops, and he dropped apostrophes from words like “dont” in some plays. Editions don’t always agree, and a panel that knows the play will hear the difference.

Ten speeches for men

A note on times: we counted the words in each speech in our library text and divided by 150 words a minute, the average American speaking rate that Lumen Learning cites from the National Center for Voice and Speech. Treat every time as an estimate. Pace varies from actor to actor, so time your own run before you trust it.

Higgins, “It’s all you’ll get until you stop being a common idiot” (Pygmalion, Act 5)

Liza has walked out on Higgins after the triumph he takes all the credit for. At his mother’s house he tries to get her back, and she tells him she wants to be cared for. He calls her a fool, and when she objects he answers: It’s all you’ll get until you stop being a common idiot. He offers her the gutter or his cold world, and ends on a dare: If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.

What he wants: to make her choose his life on his terms, without admitting he needs her. At 203 words it runs about a minute and 20 seconds. Earlier in the same act there’s a tighter option, about a minute and 10 seconds, that opens I have never sneered in my life. and turns on I don’t and won’t trade in affection. Play either as a man arguing, not a man sulking.

Doolittle, “I’m one of the undeserving poor” (Pygmalion, Act 2)

Alfred Doolittle, a dustman, turns up at Higgins’s house to get money for his daughter, who has just moved in there for lessons. When Pickering says it hardly seems right, Doolittle makes his case: I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. He takes apart the idea that only the deserving poor should get help, asks What is middle class morality?, and names the sum: Is five pounds unreasonable?

What he wants: five pounds, and the pleasure of being right about it. At 283 words it runs just under two minutes, so it fills a two-minute slot without a cut. Shaw spells out some of his London speech (“agen”), but don’t force a Cockney accent you can’t keep up. The Lir’s guide says not to use an accent you aren’t confident in and welcomes your own.

Undershaft, “The worst of crimes” (Major Barbara, Act 3, Scene 2)

Andrew Undershaft, the arms manufacturer, has brought his family to his model town at the works. His daughter Barbara has left the Salvation Army, and her fiancé Cusins asks him whether he really calls poverty a crime. His answer starts The worst of crimes. and builds to Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. Then he turns on Barbara’s lost convert and promises to save his soul with a wage and a house.

What he wants: to convert them to his gospel, the way Barbara once converted others to hers. It runs about a minute and 40 seconds. Earlier in Act 3, in his wife’s library, there’s a shorter and nastier one: his son Stephen defends the government of his country, and Undershaft replies I am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. That runs about a minute and a quarter and ends I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.

Marchbanks, “I’ll fight your ideas” (Candida, Act 1)

Eugene Marchbanks, an eighteen-year-old poet, has just told the Reverend James Morell that he loves Morell’s wife, Candida. The argument turns ugly, Morell orders him out and lays hands on him, and the boy finds his nerve. He admits he can’t lift a trunk or fight, then turns it around: I’ll fight your ideas. His sharpest line is an accusation: You are driving me out of the house because you daren’t let her choose between your ideas and mine.

What he wants: to frighten a bigger, older man with words. It runs just under a minute, good for a short call. For the other side of the same scene, Morell has a speech earlier in the same scene, about a minute long, that starts Eugene: listen to me. He’s warm and patronizing at once: Some day, I hope and trust, you will be a happy man like me.

Bluntschli, “He did it like an operatic tenor” (Arms and the Man, Act 1)

A Swiss soldier fighting for the Serbs has climbed into a Bulgarian girl’s bedroom to escape the men hunting him after a battle. Raina asks about the cavalry officer who led the charge, not saying he’s her fiancé. Bluntschli describes him: He did it like an operatic tenor. Then he explains why the charge worked: his own side had the wrong cartridges, and he himself was carrying nothing but chocolate.

What he wants: to tell the funniest war story he knows to the one listener who doesn’t want to hear it. It runs a little over a minute. The comedy is in his tiredness. He’s a professional who has had a terrible day, and he ends flatly: He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the pistol missed fire, that’s all.

Sergius, “the courage to rage and kill is cheap” (Arms and the Man, Act 3)

Sergius, the hero of that charge, has been flirting with Raina’s maid, Louka. She asks whether the poor soldiers were any less brave than the rich ones. He answers that they all fought like heroes, and that it proves nothing: the courage to rage and kill is cheap. He compares the army to his bull terrier, which has all the fighting courage in the world and still lets the groom thrash it, and ends on the man he’d like to be: he alone is the brave man.

What he wants: to impress a woman who is smarter than he is, and to believe his own speech. It runs about a minute. Sergius is a romantic who sees through his own pose, so let the speech get away from him a little.

Tanner, “The true artist will let his wife starve” (Man and Superman, Act 1)

John Tanner, a wealthy young radical, is warning his friend Octavius, a poet in love with Ann Whitefield, about what he thinks marriage does to an artist. It begins The true artist will let his wife starve and becomes a fierce, funny theory of the war between the artist and the mother. It ends on a question he answers himself: Which shall use up the other? that is the issue between them.

What he wants: to save his friend from Ann, and to enjoy his own brilliance while he does it. At 348 words it runs about two minutes and 20 seconds, so a two-minute slot needs a cut. Start at Since marriage began and you keep the climax and the ending in about a minute and a quarter. Cut whole sentences, never half of one.

Don Juan, “Hell is the home of the unreal” (Man and Superman, Act 3)

In the third act, Tanner dreams himself into Hell as Don Juan, who argues with the Devil, the statue of the Commander, and Doña Ana. Ana says she’s going to Heaven for happiness. Juan tells her she has it backwards: Hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. On Earth, he says, hunger, age, and death make people slaves of reality, and every age ends with one prayer: Make me a healthy animal.

What he wants: to show her that the place she’s leaving is the comfortable lie. It runs just under two minutes and finishes on a joke: And yet you want to leave this paradise! Wikipedia’s entry on the play notes the third act is sometimes performed on its own, so panels may know it. One caution: The Lir’s guide also rules out non-human characters, and Juan tells Ana she is a ghost here, so check before you bring a speech from Hell.

Captain Shotover, “A man’s interest in the world” (Heartbreak House, Act 2)

Shotover is an old sea captain who says he is eighty-eight. Ellie Dunn, a young guest in his house, has decided to marry a rich man she doesn’t love. When she says old men can’t care much about what happens to themselves, he gives her his theory of life: A man’s interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. He tells her how he chose danger at her age, and why her choice will cost her: you will eat, but you will not live.

What he wants: to stop her, though he claims not to care about anything anymore. It runs about a minute and 40 seconds. It’s a meaty speech for an older actor that isn’t Lear or Prospero.

Charles, “Yes: I am afraid.” (Saint Joan, Scene 2)

At Chinon, Joan has picked the uncrowned Dauphin out of his own court. He tells her the Duke de la Trémouille bullies him, and when she asks if he’s afraid, he says so at once: Yes: I am afraid. He doesn’t want armor or battles; I never asked to be a king: it was pushed on me. He finishes with total, comic finality: I am not built that way; and there is an end of it.

What he wants: to be left alone, and to get Joan to stop asking. It runs about a minute. Charles is weak, sly, and funny, and the speech is a gift for a young actor who is tired of playing heroes.

Play the case he’s making

Every man on this list is trying to win an argument with one person in the room. Higgins wants Liza’s surrender; Undershaft wants Cusins’s soul; Charles wants Joan to go away. Before anything else, write down who he’s talking to and what would count as winning. Put that person in one clear spot, just off the panel or the lens.

Then find the turn, the line where the argument changes direction. Marchbanks turns from weakness to attack at But you’re wrong. Undershaft turns from theory to a dare when he mentions West Ham. Shotover turns from himself to Ellie. If you can’t point to the turn, you’ll play the speech in one color.

Treat Shaw’s colons and semicolons as the joints of the argument, not as places to breathe. Each new clause is a new point. Juilliard’s FAQ asks you to read the whole play, so you know the character’s circumstances and who he’s talking to and why. With Shaw, read the stage directions too; he often tells you exactly what the man is thinking. And if you need a woman’s speech from the same plays, our guide to Shaw monologues for women has ten.

Cut it clean, and keep it one speech

Long Shaw speeches tempt actors to splice: take Higgins’s best lines from three turns and drop Liza’s replies in between. Don’t. The Lir’s guide warns against piecing a speech together from separate parts of a play text when another character’s lines matter. Every speech above is a single unbroken turn in our library text.

To shorten one, start on a full sentence and end on one, and keep the turn and the last line. In Tanner’s speech, start late. In Doolittle’s, you can drop the sentences about amusement and a band if you’re pressed. Juilliard asks for about two minutes and says a little under or a few seconds over is fine; The Lir allows up to three.

Our guide on how to cut a monologue walks through it step by step, and our free monologue timer checks the length at different paces. For more men’s speeches from other periods, see our list of monologues for men. You can read every play here in full: Pygmalion, Major Barbara, Candida, Arms and the Man, Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan.

Learn it as an answer

Each of these speeches answers a cue. Doolittle answers Pickering’s doubt, Sergius answers Louka’s question, Charles answers Joan’s “Art afraid?” So learn the line before your speech as carefully as the speech itself. Read the scene aloud a few times with the other parts in. Then say the speech in your own words, one point at a time, before you fix the exact text.

In Offbook, you can upload the scene from the edition you’ve chosen, pick your role, and let realistic voices read every other character and wait while you speak. When you’re ready, hide your own lines while the others stay on screen, or swap your words for first-letter cues, so you’re recalling the argument instead of reading it.

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. Then run it standing, at full voice, until the argument feels like yours.

Questions actors ask

Is there a Henry Higgins monologue in Pygmalion?

Not one famous soliloquy, but several long speeches. The Act 5 speeches to Liza are the strongest for an audition, because he has a clear want and someone to fight. For a very short call, his Act 1 boast to Pickering, about 91 words, runs under 40 seconds and includes his promise to pass Liza off as a duchess in three months.

Which of these suits a young actor?

Marchbanks says he is eighteen, and Charles is a young, untested king. Bluntschli says he is thirty-four. Doolittle, Undershaft, and Shotover are older men. Choose the character whose want you understand, then check the age range the notice asks for.

Should I use an English accent for Shaw?

You don’t have to. Juilliard says you’re welcome, but not required, to use an accent if a piece warrants it, and The Lir welcomes your own. Shaw’s arguments work in any clear voice. Spend the time on the turn instead.

Can I rehearse a Shaw 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. Hearing the cue on the way to the audition keeps it in your ear.