Shakespeare's historical dramatisation of Porica Catonis, Portia, is the second wife to Marcus Junius Brutus, known as Brutus. She is the daughter of a Roman who took the side against Caesar. She grew so comfortable with being Brutus's confidante that she is extremely upset when she finds him troubled and he won't speak her mind. She kills herself by swallowing hot coals out of grief after Anthony and Octavius became so powerful. Though Portia has very little stage time, she's extremely interesting when looking at the play's dynamics in reference to gender. For example, she calls Brutus out; "Within the bond of marriage, tell me Brutus. Is it excepted that I should know no secret that appertain to you?" - that he's been keeping things from her and that because they're married there should be no secrets between them. She gets so fed up with him excluding her that she says by keeping her out of things, he's treating her more like a prostitute than a wife, "If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, and not his wife." This is an extremely bold thing for a women to say to her husband, to call him out on his neglect and poor behavior, something that would've been uncommon in both Julius Caesar's and Shakespeare's time - this is something that initially drew me to her character.
My monologue, taken from Act 2 Scene 1, in which Portia has found Brutus out of bed with obvious something is bothering him. One of the hardest things about my monologue is that if I personally was directing it in a scene, it would involve contact between Brutus and Portia, however as I am doing the monologue by myself - this will prove a challenge. I'm going to have to work hard at portraying everything that Portia feels towards her husband hiding things from her without having another actor on stage with me to make that connection physically real rather than just through the words I am speaking.
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