# He Who Gets Slapped: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Leonid Andreyev, translated by Gregory Zilboorg. 25 speaking roles, 18,242 words, about 130 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/he-who-gets-slapped
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**He** has the most to say in He Who Gets Slapped: about 587 lines and 4,608 words, 25.3% of the play. Andreyev’s drama follows a mysterious gentleman who joins a circus as a clown whose act is being slapped. He holds about a quarter of the words, with Mancini nearly level at 23%. Consuelo is the third major part at about 15%, and all three speak in every act.

- Speaking roles: 25
- Scenes: 4
- Words: 18,242
- Speech time: 130 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| He | 587 | 4,608 | 25.3% | 32.9 | 4 |
| Mancini | 492 | 4,196 | 23% | 30.0 | 4 |
| Consuelo | 347 | 2,709 | 14.9% | 19.4 | 4 |
| Briquet | 216 | 1,645 | 9% | 11.8 | 4 |
| Zinida | 174 | 1,292 | 7.1% | 9.2 | 3 |
| Gentleman | 159 | 1,249 | 6.8% | 8.9 | 3 |
| Jackson | 83 | 684 | 3.7% | 4.9 | 3 |
| Bezano | 65 | 506 | 2.8% | 3.6 | 4 |
| Baron | 61 | 426 | 2.3% | 3.0 | 3 |
| Polly | 33 | 238 | 1.3% | 1.7 | 4 |
| Tilly | 22 | 151 | 0.8% | 1.1 | 4 |
| Henry | 17 | 134 | 0.7% | 1.0 | 1 |
| The Conductor | 8 | 69 | 0.4% | 0.5 | 1 |
| Angelica | 8 | 63 | 0.3% | 0.5 | 1 |
| The Second | 8 | 51 | 0.3% | 0.4 | 1 |
| Athlete | 6 | 40 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 1 |
| Voices | 5 | 39 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 2 |
| The Shaven | 5 | 36 | 0.2% | 0.3 | 1 |
| The Usher | 4 | 29 | 0.2% | 0.2 | 1 |
| Thomas | 5 | 28 | 0.2% | 0.2 | 1 |
| The Bareback Rider | 2 | 19 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| The Clean-shaven One | 2 | 13 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| First Actress | 1 | 10 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| A Voice | 1 | 5 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |
| Actress | 1 | 2 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## Who speaks in which scene

Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: Act 1 = Act 1; Act 2 = Act 2; Act 3 = Act 3; Act 4 = Act 4.

- **He**: Act 1 (523), Act 2 (1,518), Act 3 (1,760), Act 4 (807)
- **Mancini**: Act 1 (1,185), Act 2 (1,151), Act 3 (1,128), Act 4 (732)
- **Consuelo**: Act 1 (121), Act 2 (895), Act 3 (1,129), Act 4 (564)
- **Briquet**: Act 1 (725), Act 2 (395), Act 3 (90), Act 4 (435)
- **Zinida**: Act 1 (507), Act 2 (62), Act 4 (723)
- **Gentleman**: Act 1 (421), Act 2 (94), Act 3 (734)
- **Jackson**: Act 1 (162), Act 2 (178), Act 4 (344)
- **Bezano**: Act 1 (302), Act 2 (12), Act 3 (178), Act 4 (14)
- **Baron**: Act 2 (264), Act 3 (29), Act 4 (133)

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Scene | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| He: “But why? Explain it to me. You say yourself that your book is a tremendous success, you are famous, you have glory; there is not a yellow newspaper in which you and your thoughts are not mentioned. Who knows me? Who cares about my heavy abstractions, from which it was difficult for them to derive a single thought? You—you are the great vulgarizer! You have made my thoughts comprehensible even to horses! With the art of a great vulgarizer, a tailor of ideas, you dressed my Apollo in a barber’s jacket, you handed my Venus a yellow ticket, and to my bright hero you gave the ears of an ass. And then your career is made, as Jackson says. And wherever I go, the whole street looks at me with thousands of faces, in which—what mockery—I recognize the traits of my own children. Oh! How ugly your son must be, if he resembles me! Why then are you unhappy, you poor devil? The police haven’t caught you, as yet. What am I talking about? Is it possible to catch you? You always keep within the limits of the law. You have been torturing yourself up to now because you are not married to my wife. A notary public is always present at your thefts. What is the use of this self-torture, my friend? Get married. I died. You are not satisfied with having taken only my wife? Let my glory remain in your possession. It is yours. Accept my ideas. Assume all the rights, my most lawful heir! I died! And when I was dying I forgave thee!” | Act 3 | 271 | 28 |
| Gentleman: “Sit down here. Thank you. I am respected and I am famous, yes? I have a wife and a son, yes. My wife still loves you: our favourite discussion is about your genius. She supposes you are a genius. We, I and she, love you even when we are in bed. Tss! It is I who must make faces. My son—yes, he’ll resemble you. And when, in order to have a little rest, I go to my desk, to my ink-pot, my books—there, too, I find you. Always you! Everywhere you! And I am never alone—never myself and alone. And when at night—you, sir, should understand this—when at night I go to my lonely thoughts, to my sleepless contemplations, even then I find your image in my head, in my unfortunate brain, your damned and hateful image!” | Act 3 | 142 | 15 |
| He: “Don’t be angry, Jim. It’s a play, don’t you understand? I become happy when I enter the ring and hear the music. I wear a mask and I feel humorous. There is a mask on my face, and I play. I may say anything like a drunkard. Do you understand? Yesterday when I, with this stupid face, was playing the great man, the philosopher I was walking this way, and was telling how great, how wise, how incomparable I was—how God lived in me, how high I stood above the earth—how glory shone above my head then you, Jim, you hit me for the first time. And I asked you, “What is it, they’re applauding me?” Then, at the tenth slap, I said: “It seems to me that they sent for me from the Academy?”” | Act 2 | 137 | 14 |
| Mancini: “Do you know what blood flows in the veins of an Italian woman? The blood of Hannibal and Corsini—of a Borgia—and of a dirty Lombardi peasant—and of a Moor. Oh! an Italian woman is not of a lower race, with only peasants and gypsies behind her. All possibilities, all forms are included in her, as in our marvelous sculpture. Do you understand that, you fool? Strike here—out springs a washerwoman, or a cheap street girl whom you want to throw out, because she is sloppy and has a screechy voice. Strike there—but carefully and gently, for there stands a queen, a goddess, the Venus of the Capitol, who sings like a Stradivarius and makes you cry, idiot! An Italian woman—” | Act 2 | 125 | 13 |
| Mancini: “In jail? Oh, no! Why, I have to uphold our name, the splendour of my family, haven’t I? The Mancinis are known all over Italy for their love of girls—just girls! Is it my fault if I must pay such crazy prices for what my ancestors got free of charge? You’re nothing but an ass, a parvenu ass. How can you understand Family Traditions? I don’t drink—I stopped playing cards after that accident—no, you need not smile. Now if I give up the girls, what will be left of Mancini? Only a coat of arms, that’s all—In the name of family traditions, give me a hundred francs!” | Act 1 | 111 | 12 |
| He: “Don’t laugh, Consuelo, at the voice of the stars. They are far away, their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark. You stand at the gates of eternity. Your die is cast; you are doomed—and your Alfred, whom you love in your heart, even though your mind is not aware of it, your Alfred cannot save you. He, too, is a stranger on this earth. He is submerged in a deep sleep. He, too, is a little god who has lost himself, and Consuelo, never, never will he find his way to Heaven again. Forget Bezano—” | Act 2 | 110 | 11 |
| He: “But you know the Baron? Listen. It is painful for me to pronounce these words: she loves you. Save her from the spider! Or are you blind, and don’t see the web, which is woven in every dark corner. Get out of the vicious circle in which you are turning around, like a blind man. Take her away, steal her, do what you want … kill her even, and take her to the heavens or to the devil! But don’t give her to this man! He is a defiler of love. And if you are timid, if you are afraid to lift your hand against her—kill the Baron! Kill!” | Act 3 | 109 | 11 |
| Gentleman: “I don’t know. … But such language! I confess I find difficulty in expressing my thoughts in such an atmosphere, but if you are so … indifferent to your wife, who, I shall allow myself to emphasize the fact, loved you and thought you were a saint— Then what brought you to such a … step? Or is it that you cannot forgive me my success? A success, it is true, not entirely deserved. And now you want to take vengeance, with your humbleness, on those who misunderstood you. But you always were so indifferent to glory. Or your indifference was only hypocrisy. And when I, a more lucky rival …” | Act 3 | 107 | 11 |
| Mancini: “Oh! Go to the devil! When I listen to your asinine philosophy, I’d like to skin you for more than a paltry hundred francs—for two hundred—for a thousand. Great God! What an ass of a manager! Yes, right before every one of them I want to say that you are a stingy old skinflint—that you pay starvation wages. I’ll make you give Consuelo a raise of a hundred francs. Listen, all you honest vagabonds, tell me—who is it draws the crowd that fills the circus every night? You? a couple of musical donkeys? Tigers, lions? Nobody cares for those hungry cats!” | Act 1 | 105 | 11 |
| Mancini: “Prison! Mustn’t I uphold the glory of my name now, eh? He, I’m joking—but there is Hell in my heart. You’re the only one who understands me. But tell me how to explain this passion? It will turn my hair grey, it’ll bring me to prison, to the grave. I am a tragic man. He— Why don’t I like things which are not forbidden? Why, at all moments, even at the very moment of ecstasy, must I be reminded of some law—it is stupid. He, I am becoming an anarchist. Good God!—Count Mancini, an anarchist. That’s the only thing I’ve missed.” | Act 2 | 104 | 11 |

## Small roles that can be doubled

These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way.

- Baron and Athlete
- Baron and First Actress
- Baron and Actress
- Henry and Athlete
- Henry and The Usher
- Henry and The Bareback Rider
- Henry and First Actress
- Henry and A Voice
- Henry and Actress
- The Conductor and Athlete
- The Conductor and The Usher
- The Conductor and The Bareback Rider

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in He Who Gets Slapped?

He, with about 587 lines and 4,608 words, 25.3% of everything spoken in the play. Mancini is next, with about 492 lines (23%).

### How long is He Who Gets Slapped?

The full text has 18,242 spoken words, about 130 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in He Who Gets Slapped?

25 named roles speak in this edition, across 4 scenes. 16 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/leonid-andreyev/he-who-gets-slapped/gregory-zilboorg) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).