Writing and Performing Monologues

Below you will find a series of monologues excerpted from the Eagle Eye script. These monologues feature the different character voices encountered by Eagle Eye Daughter as she journeys far and wide to try to figure out where the human people have gone. The word choice, sentence structure and poetic line breaks support the attributes of each character’s point of view.

Try writing several more bits of advice from animals not depicted in the Eagle Eye Legend. For example, what is the special advice, or scrap of ecological and economic wisdom that some of these animals and elemental forces might offer to Eagle Eye Daughter?

What is voice, the special wisdom of….

Bear	Salmon	Wind	Worm	Seal
Cedar Tree	Rain Drop	River	Orca	Snow

 

Monologues from the Eagle Eye Legend

 

DUCK EATS SALMON EGG

Duck paddles in circles with one webbed foot...

See this egg? Round as the world!
Where does it start! And where does it stop!
Everywhere! Just try to jump off of that!
Inside this big world, you gotta smaller world, and
inside that one a smaller one than that, and then
a smaller one inside that one, and then
you got, you got this egg.
And inside this egg…
molecules, genes, lined-up proteins.
All that Mother Nature could throw in the stew,
right in here, ancient as it is brand new.
I got me a world!
Now, the question is, Girl, once I eat it,
is it still a salmon? Am I a duck?
Am I in the world? Or is the world in me?
Thank you!
Quack-quack-quack-quack…

 

RIVER OTTER GETS HIS

Look, the rest of us, we worked it, we all worked it out.
See, Salmon’s gonna have, maybe, uh, 5,000 children, say.
Okay, so I eats 50 or 60 of ‘em, right?
Bull Trout over there. Whoa! Look out!
He’s gonna take maybe 5, 8, 10, you know, enough,
not more than he needs, cuz, like I say, we worked it,
we all worked it out.
Great Blue Heron, will ya look at the legs on that gal,
she’s gonna take, maybe a dozen salmon a day, you know,
she got baby bills to pay.
King Fisher, little rocker, got his thing going on,
jammin’ for salmon, jamin for salmon…
5,000 salmon children! What a gift. What a gift. No,
I am sayin’ what… a… gift!
We ALL be jamin for salmon.
Everybody be takin’ a dozen here, a dozen there,
makin’ sure, however, that plenty of them other little
salmon cousins slip on by, cuz’ that’s the agreement,
that’s the way it works, that WHY it works… like, we family.
That’s right, Girlie. This ain’t no win-lose proposition.
We all be sayin’ win, win, win, win, win… you know,
but who’s countin’?

 

BEAVER BUILDS TO SCALE

Beaver pokes up, teeth first, pushing a gnawed-on stick across
the river to the place where he was building his dam.
Eagle Eye Daughter flies across the river and lands
on top of the dam…

“I’m trying to figure it out!”

Are you now, Darlin’? Well.
It really all comes down to engineerin’.
It’s about the proper scale of the project.
Take for example my own contribution.
I clear out a wee bit of timber at the edge of the forest
over there, allowin’ more vegetation to
find the air, if you know what I mean.
Now then, I place my dam over here, see,
strategically, at the outflow of this wee wetland creek,
back up a bit of a pond. You follow me, Darlin?
Salmon rear here. It’s where they go to school.
Heron feeds, Froggie sings, cattails fluff their cover,
dragonflies hover. You got a dozen beaver dams
up and down this river. Me and my cousins, we keep
the spring snow melt from rushin’ through too fast.
We hold the waters in the dry summer
months, extra long, to provide for everybody’s needs.
Mind you, nothin’ bigger than what it needs to be.
It’s all about the scale of the project.

 

GEESE BANK ON NATURAL CAPITAL

Eagle Eye Daughter looks up to see a flock of geese.
She rose to meet them.
At first she flew too fast.
Then she flew not fast enough.
Finally she fell in off the shoulder of a
young female about her age…

“I’m trying to figure it out!”

“Home, home, home, home, healthy
eco-logical, systems, free service to the global
economy-me-me-me, home, home, home,
Nature’s piggy bank, bigger than,
every nation’s piggy bank combined,
natural capital, home, home, home…
borrow too much from Nature’s piggy bank, broken,
home, broken home, broken home, home, home,
eco-logical, accounts overdrawn, insufficient funds,
home, home, home, home, GDP, silly, silly GDP
excuse me, bombs away,
silly GDP, home, home, home, home…

Eagle Eye Daughter was having trouble
keeping up with the geese…

“How do you know all this stuff?
excuse me… how do you know all this stuff?”

“North, just north, true north, follow, flock, fly,
landmark, mark, mark, mark, mark,
stopover, watershed, wetland, estuary, marsh, golf course,
excuse me, bombs away, that way, true north,
take the lead, my turn coming up,
you join me, take the lead, leadership,
home, home free, eco-logical services, free,
home, home, free, home, home…

 

GLACIERS ON GLOBAL WARMING

Eagle Eye Daughter rose higher into the air.
Higher still. She came upon a mountain range.
She called out long and lonely…

“I’m trying to figure it out-out-out…”

The glaciers on the mountains far below
echoed back to her…

“Slow.

Go.

Slow.

Speed.

Hurts.

Cool…it.

Girl.”

 

BARK BEETLE AS OPPORTUNIST

She landed on the naked branch of a naked tree.
Something caught her attention.
A small movement coming out of the bark.
She leaned in with one eye. It was… a… Bark Beetle.

“Nice temperature.”

Eagle Eye Daughter looked at Bark Beetle.
Then she surveyed the devastated landscape.

“Did humans do this?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“We did.”

“You ruined a whole forest? That’s terrible. That’s evil.”

“Ruined? Evil?
Where did you get that?
Look, Lady. All I know is.
World temperature.
Heats up. Half a degree. Okay.
So more of our eggs. Survive winter.
Okay. Pretty simple. Consequence.
Frankly. Okay.
We’re delighted.
We hatch out. One day.
Guess what? Got this.
New territory. Breed. Feed.
You can’t call me. Pest.
Okay. Opportunist. Maybe.
Pest . No way.

Look Lady.
We got. 350,000 Beetle.
Species. Different species.
Like me. Not me. Like me.
Different. Species. Okay.
And that’s just what the human beings.
Can count.
We got twice that.

Survival. Lady.
Strength in diversity.
Nimbleness in numbers.
Theme and variation.
Bio. Diversity.
My kin. We been. Round since
the last. Mass extinction.
Diversify. Or die.
Okay bye.”

 

FROG AS PHARMACEUTICAL LAB

Just then, Frog hopped out of the water
onto a piece of broken of concrete.

Princess... Know what?
Princess... Know what?
Princess... Know what?
Princess...

“What! What do you want?”

Got cousins. Froggie cousins.
With glands. Special glands.
Ooze antibodies.
Kill every known. Bacteria.
We got the magic.
We got the healin’ powers.
No human being, ever gonna, learn, ‘bout that.
Princess... Know what?
Extinc…tion, Froggie cousins, Extinc…tion
Permanent.
Permanent.
Permanent.

“Do you think the human people went extinct?”

“Talkin’ about. My cousins. Princess.
Extinc…tion, Permanent. Permanent.”

“Yeah but do you think the human people went extinct?”

“Talkin’ about. My cousins. Prin…”

Frog didn’t finish. He saw Snake slipping sideways
through the grass getting closer…
Frog dove back into the pond
and disappeared beneath a sunken shopping cart.

 

 

SNAKE ON THE SPEED OF CHANGE

Eagle Eye Daughter asked Snake…

“Snake, do you think the human people went extinct?”

Seems like the wrong question
Sissster…
Extinction-issss, alwaysss-happening…
Thatsss-no big deal… so isss
evolution… alwaysss-happening…
Thatsss-no big deal.
The whole sublime design,
evolution and extinction,
extinction and evolution,
issss in continuousss-innovation...
That’s not the problem… Sssister….
It’s the speed,
it’s the speed,
it’s the SPEED-OF-IT!
That’s-sssso dangeroussss.

Innovation takesss-time…
Innovation takesss-multitudesss-of-ingredientsss…
Innovation takesss-quality-laboratory-facilitiesssss...
LIKE-A-PLANET!