To Be, or Not to Be

Hamlet, from Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1, by William Shakespeare. Public domain. Intro and performance note by FreeSchoolPlays.com.

THE SPEECH IN PLAIN WORDS

This is Shakespeare's most famous speech, and for older students it works best as a speech about facing a hard choice and deciding to carry on. Hamlet is worn down by everything going wrong around him, and he weighs a big question out loud: is it braver to put up with troubles, or to walk away from them? He works through the fear of the unknown -- the part of any hard road we can't see ahead of us -- and concludes that it is exactly that uncertainty that makes people hesitate, think twice, and keep going rather than give up.

THE MONOLOGUE

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die -- to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

PERFORMANCE NOTE

Take it slowly -- this is a mind genuinely working, not a rehearsed argument, so let each idea arrive as if it just occurred to you. Find the two big pivots: "To die -- to sleep" (the appeal of just stopping) and "ay, there's the rub" (the catch that changes his mind). The last thought is the point of the whole speech: that thinking hard about the unknown is what makes us pause and press on. End quietly and thoughtfully rather than dramatically.

This is the full, unaltered public-domain text (US); the introduction and performance note are by Monologue.Network via FreeSchoolPlays.com. Free to perform -- a single credit line is the only requirement.

Audition prep notes

Full piece: 1 beat, ~263 words -- very short (Under 2 minutes), about 2 min at a natural pace.

Start with the objective

Before you run it, name your character's objective in one sentence: what do they want in this moment, and what is in the way of getting it easily? Pace, volume, and movement all follow from that one sentence, not the other way around.

Map the beats

The current text renders as a single continuous block, with no internal paragraph breaks to key off of. Build your own beat map instead: mark every point where the character's tactic or target shifts -- a new argument, a new realization, a change in who or what they are speaking to -- and treat each as its own beat.

Pacing for this length -- very short

Economy is everything at this length: cut any preparatory movement before your first line, and land the final beat cleanly rather than adding a button. Under 2 minutes, this often plays as one unbroken thought.

Delivery approach -- Verse / Poetic

Honor the line, not just the sentence: breathe at the end of a verse line even when the punctuation runs on, and let the meter carry the emotional pulse instead of fighting it with naturalistic pauses.

Framing for All ages

This piece is written to read across age groups. Start from the plainest version of the objective -- what the character wants, and why now -- before layering in the nuance your own age and experience bring to it.

Forensics eligibility -- Poetry Interpretation

This piece reads as Poetry Interpretation. That classification is illustrative only -- not official, not an NSDA, NCFL, or UIL certification. Always verify current eligibility with your event's own published rules before entering it in competition.

Generic coaching guidance for actors preparing this piece -- not a substitute for your director's or coach's notes.

Read it here, or print it (or save it as a PDF) straight from your browser. It is free.

Browse more monologues