# Strindberg Monologues for Auditions: Miss Julie, The Stronger, The Father, and Creditors > Strindberg speeches for auditions, for women and men, from Miss Julie, The Stronger, Creditors, and The Father: the setup, what the character wants, a short excerpt from a free translation, a word count and run time, and where to cut, plus how schools count an 1880s play and how to play a speech to someone who never answers. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/strindberg-monologues-for-auditions - Published: 2026-11-03 - Last updated: 2026-11-03 You want a speech that burns. Not a sad one, not a clever one, but a person at the edge of what they can stand, saying things they'll regret by morning. Someone in class mentions Strindberg, you search for a Strindberg monologue, and you find a paywall, a plot summary, and a list that names *Miss Julie* and nothing else. There's more there than that list suggests. Strindberg wrote short, fierce plays in the late 1880s, and his people talk in long, wild runs when they're cornered. The catch is that most of his big speeches sit inside two-person scenes, and the words you learn depend on which translation you picked up. The short version: check how the notice draws the line between classical and contemporary, learn one free translation and stay with it, and pick a speech with a clear listener. Below are ten speeches from *Miss Julie*, *The Stronger*, *Creditors*, and *The Father*, each with the setup, the want, a short excerpt, and a run time. Every excerpt is copied from translations that Project Gutenberg lists as public domain in the USA. ## Find out where the notice puts Strindberg Strindberg wrote *Miss Julie* in 1888, and the [play's Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Julie) notes that the censors banned it at the dress rehearsal before its 1889 premiere in Copenhagen. That date puts him in the same gray zone as Ibsen: too late for most classical slots, too old to feel contemporary to some panels. The University of Washington's [auditioning glossary](https://drama.washington.edu/auditioning-glossary) is a good picture of the usual rule. Classical usually means something written before the 19th century, often in heightened language, and contemporary usually means something that feels current, in plain language. Strindberg in English translation is plain prose from the 1880s, so under that rule he isn't classical. Some schools are more specific. Juilliard's [2020-21 monologue FAQ](https://www.juilliard.edu/sites/default/files/monologue_faqs_2020_21.pdf) asks for two classical and two contemporary pieces, about two minutes each, and says contemporary selections come from writers working roughly from Chekhov and Ibsen to the present day. Strindberg was their contemporary, so a Jean or a Julie would likely sit in the contemporary pile there. When the wording is vague, a one-line email to the school costs less than a wasted slot. ## Learn from one free translation Strindberg wrote in Swedish, so what you say in the room is a translator's English. The plays are long out of copyright, but a translation is a work of its own. The U.S. Copyright Office's [Circular 14](https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf) lists translations among the common derivative works and explains that the copyright in one never extends to the public-domain material underneath. Old translations can be free to use; new ones usually aren't. Two free ones cover everything here, and both are listed as public domain in the USA on Project Gutenberg: - [Edwin Björkman's translation](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14347) of *Miss Julia*, *The Stronger*, and *Creditors*, with his introductions and Strindberg's own preface to *Miss Julia*. Björkman writes that he made his version of *The Stronger* in the summer of 1906. - [Edith and Warner Oland's translation](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8499) of *The Father*, *Countess Julie*, and *The Stronger*, whose publisher's note reports Strindberg's death in 1912. Notice the titles. Björkman calls the play *Miss Julia*, the Olands call it *Countess Julie*, and most people say *Miss Julie*. The lines differ too, so pick one text and learn only that one. Below, *Miss Julie*, *The Stronger*, and *Creditors* come from Björkman, and *The Father* from the Olands. Modern translations are often sharper to say; they're under copyright, so buy or borrow the published script. A note on times: we counted the words in each speech, left out the stage directions, and divided by 150 words a minute, a conversational pace. Strindberg's people speed up when they're frightened and slow down when they're scheming, so treat every time as a starting point and check it with a run of your own. ## Speeches for women ### Mrs. X, "Why don't you say something?" (*The Stronger*) Christmas Eve, a ladies' restaurant. Mrs. X, an actress, finds her old rival Miss Y alone at a table and talks at her: presents for the children, slippers for her husband, gossip. Miss Y never says a word. Partway through, Mrs. X starts remembering how her husband behaved around this woman, and the pieces click together as she speaks. The speech runs from *It was so peculiar* to *Why don't you want to be with us to-night?* What she wants: to make Miss Y deny it. It's 289 words, just under two minutes. The discovery happens on the line, not before it, so don't play the ending at the start. Her own words are the clue: *You've just let me go on talking.* ### Mrs. X, "I am the stronger now" (*The Stronger*) The end of the same play. Mrs. X has accused, raged, and pitied, and now she decides she has won. Start at *Perhaps, after all, I am the stronger now* and go to her exit. It's 196 words, about a minute and a quarter. She takes back the slippers, thanks her rival for teaching her how to love her husband, and leaves. Play the victory as real, and let the panel wonder. ### Julie, the dream of the column (*Miss Julie*) Midsummer Eve. Julie, the count's daughter, has been drinking and dancing with the servants and is trying to get her father's valet Jean to walk out with her. She tells him a dream she keeps having: *I have climbed to the top of a column*, too dizzy to look down and longing to fall. From *Life, men, everything* to *Have you ever felt like that?* is 142 words, about a minute. What she wants: for Jean to admit he feels it too. It's short for a two-minute slot, so it works best when a notice asks for a minute, or as the second, quieter piece. Play it as a dare, not a confession. ### Julie, "my mother was not of noble birth" (*Miss Julie*) Later that night Julie, drinking again, tells Jean how she was raised: her mother wanted her brought up like a boy, *I was dressed as a boy*, and the estate fell apart around them until a fire burned it down. From *You see, my mother was not of noble birth* to *it came too late* is 332 words, a little over two minutes, so trim a sentence or two for a tight slot. What she wants: for Jean to understand why she is the way she is, before it's too late. Let her be funny about the chaos at first. ### Julie at the chopping block (*Miss Julie*) Near the end, after Jean has killed her pet bird on the chopping block, Julie turns on him. It's the most violent speech in the play. The full speech, from *No, I don't want to go yet.* to *ends in jail*, is 336 words, a little over two minutes. The core, from *You think I cannot stand the sight of blood.* to *take your name!*, is 115 words, under a minute. What she wants: to wound him as badly as he has wounded her. Shouted from start to finish it goes flat, so find the cold places in it. Check the content suits the room before you choose it; for a school audition, the column dream is a safer Julie. ## Speeches for men ### Jean, the Turkish pavilion (*Miss Julie*) Julie presses Jean to say who the girl was that he loved as a boy, and he tells her the story of sneaking into a garden building on her father's estate and running away through the bushes, until he caught sight of a girl in a pink dress among the roses (*that was you!*) and crawled into a pile of weeds to watch her. Start at *once I got into the Garden of Eden* and end on *play with the count's daughter.* It's 289 words, just under two minutes. What he wants: to make her feel how far below her he started, and how long he's wanted her. Björkman spells it *Turkish pavillion*, by the way, so don't "fix" it on the page you learn from. ### Jean, the oats (*Miss Julie*) The second half of the same story: the boy who washed and dressed up to see her in church, went home determined to die, and lay down in a box of oats filled with elder flowers. From *However, do you know what I did?* to *into which I was born* is 235 words, about a minute and a half. Its strangest line is a gift to play: *Soft to the touch as the skin of the human body!* Julie's reply when he finishes is the best acting note you'll get: *You narrate splendidly*. He may be making half of it up. ### Jean, the dream of the tree (*Miss Julie*) Jean's answer to Julie's column: *I am lying under a tall tree in a dark wood*, trying to reach the first branch so he can climb to the top. It's 119 words, under a minute, and it pairs well with the column dream if you and a partner want a short duet. Play it as a plan, not a wish. ### Adolph, "I brought you back to life" (*Creditors*) Adolph, a painter, has been taken apart by his new friend Gustav, who is secretly his wife Tekla's first husband. Now Tekla is home, and Adolph tells her what he gave her: he nursed her, gave her back her reputation, and painted her into fame. *I brought you back to life, when you seemed already dead.* The whole speech is 670 words, about four and a half minutes. Cut it in half. From *At this moment, yes* to *stand on your own feet* is 359 words, about two and a half minutes, and it's the account of what he gave. From *When you reached that far* to *stem and branch must die together* is 311 words, the account of what it cost. Pick the half you can play hardest. What he wants: for her to admit she owes him everything. ### The Captain, "has not a man eyes!" (*The Father*) The Captain has come to suspect that his wife Laura has lied about whether he is their daughter's father, and the doubt is breaking him. He begs her to tell him the truth, and when she sees him crying, he answers: *But has not a man eyes!* From *Yes, I am crying* to *Why is it unmanly?* is only 90 words. You'll hear the echo of Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" in it, and a panel will too. That's the challenge: play the Captain's need, not the quotation. It's too short on its own, so pair it with his speech just before (104 words, from *What use is that*), which makes about a minute and a quarter once you cut Laura's one line between them. Only do that if the notice allows lines joined across a cut. One fix before you learn it: the Gutenberg text of this speech has a misprint, *the wine food*, where the sense, and Shylock's original, is *the same food*. Say "the same food." ## Play the one who never answers *The Stronger* is the clearest lesson in Strindberg for any monologue. One of the two women never speaks, and Björkman's introduction says this turns the little play *practically into a monologue*. He adds that *an actress of genius and discernment might prefer the dumb part*. The [play's Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stronger) notes that Strindberg's first wife played Mrs. X at the first performance in 1889. That silent woman is what every audition monologue needs. Put your listener in one clear spot, close to you and just off the panel's eyeline, and decide what they do after each sentence: look away, smile, start to speak and stop. Mrs. X's speech only works because Miss Y's silence keeps changing what she says next. Play every speech above the same way. Strindberg's preface to *Miss Julia* gives you the other key. He writes that he made his figures *vacillating, out of joint, torn between the old and the new*, and calls his characters *conglomerates*. So don't settle on one mood for the speech. Julie is proud and frightened in the same paragraph, and Jean is tender and calculating in the same sentence. The changes are the part. ## Cut it, time it, and keep the turn Several of these run longer than a two-minute slot once you add a breath and a pause. Cut whole sentences, never half a line, and keep the last line. Then find the **turn**, the line where the tactic changes: in the first Mrs. X speech it's *Why don't you say something?*, and in Adolph's it's the moment he stops listing gifts and starts listing costs. Our free [monologue timer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/monologue-timer) checks the length at different paces, and our guide on [how to cut a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-cut-a-monologue) walks through the method. For pieces from Strindberg's neighbors, see our lists of [Ibsen monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/ibsen-monologues-for-auditions) and [Chekhov monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/chekhov-monologues-for-auditions), and the [dramatic monologues page](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/dramatic) of our monologue library. If you want the whole Julie and Jean scene for class, it's in our [dramatic scenes for a man and a woman](https://www.offbook.com/blog/dramatic-scenes-for-a-man-and-a-woman), which uses the Olands' translation, *Countess Julie*, so the wording differs from Björkman's. ## Learn it with the other voice in the room Because these speeches answer someone, learn the cue as carefully as the speech. Read the whole scene aloud a few times with the other part in, so you know exactly what Julie has just said before Jean starts his story, or what Tekla has just admitted before Adolph explodes. Then say the speech in your own words, one sentence per thought, before you go word-perfect. In Offbook, upload the scene in the translation you've chosen, pick your role, and realistic voices read Jean, Julie, or Tekla, then wait while you say your lines. As the video below shows, you can 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. Video: [Hide your lines](https://www.offbook.com/learn/hide-your-lines) (1:07) You can do the cue step with any speech in our free [first-letter memorizer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer). Julie's *I cannot hold on, and I am longing to fall, and yet I don't fall* becomes *I c h o, a I a l t f, a y I d f.* Say the line from the letters, check it, and go again. Our guide on [how to memorize a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-a-monologue) has the full method. ## Questions actors ask ### Is there a monologue in Miss Julie? Several, though they all sit inside scenes. Julie's dream of the column, her story about her mother, and the chopping-block speech work for women; Jean's story of the Turkish pavilion, the oats, and his dream of the tree work for men. Each needs a clear listener, because each is spoken to the other. ### Is The Stronger a monologue? Practically, yes. It's a one-scene play for two women in which only Mrs. X speaks. By our count the whole thing runs about 1,740 words, roughly eleven or twelve minutes, so for an audition take one section, such as the discovery or the ending. ### Which Strindberg translation should I use? Any translation you can get legally, as long as you learn one and stay with it. Björkman's and the Olands' are free on Project Gutenberg, which lists both as public domain in the USA. If your teacher or the production uses a modern version, buy or borrow that script instead. ### Is Strindberg too dark for a school audition? Some of it is. The chopping-block speech and parts of *The Father* are violent and adult. Julie's column dream, Jean's tree dream, and the ending of *The Stronger* are intense without being graphic, and they suit most rooms.