New 1-minute Dramatic Monologue about Love and Grief: 20 Magical Minutes
Miguel Angel Guzmán as Joffrey in the Aery Festival production of 20 Magical Minutes of Darkness and Silence and Peace, directed by Nathan Flower and co-starring Missy Flower as Grace.
My new monologue, 20 Magical Minutes, features a raccoon, but don’t let the animal fur make you think this is a light-hearted children’s monologue. This monologue, from the play, 20 MAGICAL MINUTES OF DARKNESS AND SILENCE AND PEACE, is about grieving, love, acceptance, and honoring someone. One producer shared with me his reaction over reading the play for the first time, sitting next to his co-producer. He emailed me this verbatim dialogue from the coffee shop where they were reading through 1000 or so scripts:
Producer 1: Are you okay?
Producer 2: (through tears) I'm crying over this play about raccoons.
Producer 1: Oh my lord.
Well, folks, sometimes a racoon is not just a raccoon!
This producer then went on to direct the play spectacularly and beautifully!
WhatCo Arts and Theater Company production of 20 Magical Minutes of Darkness and Silence and Peace, directed by Frankie Perez, starring Michelle Almeida-Grillo as Grace and Richard Dwyer as Joffrey.
Okay, so the play definitely has humor in it too. And dumpster pizza and matted fur and mentions of jelly mold. But at its core, this is a play about love, loss, grief, connection and self-worth. And Joffrey’s monologue, 20 Magical Minutes, encapsulates that.
In the play, 20 MAGICAL MINUTES OF DARKNESS AND SILENCE AND PEACE, Joffrey, a grieving raccoon, has asked fellow raccoon, Grace, for help moving the body of his recently deceased life partner to a sacred place to memorialize her. Grace has suggested a few locations (a dumpster, a special tree), but Joffrey isn’t interested in those. He has another special place in mind…
This monologue, 20 Magical Minutes, only runs about 1-1.5 minutes, but it takes Joffrey on a journey. In it, he explains to Grace how he met his partner (in a truck engine one rainy day), her first impression of him, how he somehow won her over, what he misses about her, and his reluctant acceptance of her passing. After the monologue is over, in the play, Joffrey reveals to Grace the exact location where they need to move his loved one’s body (you can take a guess!).
Enjoy an excerpt below:
JOFFREY
You know what she really loved? She loved climbing in the engine compartments of cars, just after the motor was turned off… When a motor turns off, there’s—I don’t know—20 magical minutes, at least, of this—this perfect warmth. And darkness. And…silence. But the absence of a motor running is… Grace, it’s even quieter than silence. It’s a peace…like death. Or what I imagine to be death. (pause) It’s where I first met her. A gray truck at the train station—END OF EXCERPT
Click below for Joffrey’s complete 1-minute monologue, 20 Magical Minutes.
To learn more about Joffrey and get the complete play, click below:
In this 2-person 10-minute dark comedy/drama, Grace, a raccoon, is begrudgingly charged to find, and bring back, her fellow raccoon, Joffrey, who has gone missing after a shocking personal tragedy. When she finally finds the depressed Joffrey in a train station parking lot, he is carrying around a large garbage bag and refuses to come back with her—yet. He is reeling in grief, and in order to find solace and closure, he has to do something first. At this parking lot. With the garbage bag. And he needs her help. This is a play where our characters are raccoons. They talk about cat food, pizza from a dumpster and being tired when staying awake during the daylight. But at its core, is a story about love, loss, pain, grief and ultimately friendship—which is entirely human.