Scoring a Monologue, Part 3 - Beats

Today I promised to cover beats in a monologue. The thing is that there is no one specific definition to a beat. Different theatre artists may use the word differently. Just know that in general, a beat means a unit of action. It is thought that Stanislavsky actually said,"bit," but with his Russian accent, it was understood as "beat."

If we take a look at Hamlet, one person might define all of this action as a single beat.

BERNARDO
Who's there?
FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO
Long live the king!
FRANCISCO
Bernardo?
BERNARDO
He.

The unit of action the person would be describing is the entrance to where the characters are certain they recognize each other. I personally feel that it is long for a beat, but it is possible.

I would personally define the first beat of Hamlet as

BERNARDO
Who's there?
FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

This is because it is one interaction of Bernardo asking a question and Francisco answering it.

However, another definition of beat, especially for a monologue, is where a mood change happens in the dialogue. While my video may not exactly match my markings in my monologue, the markings helped me perform my monologue. For this post, I am only going to separate beats with slashes, but in reality, my monologue had the underlined stressed words and the slashes for the beats.

Here is what it looks like with just the beats separated:

I'm doing fine, thank you. Today's an off day. / Usually I do fine./ I get numb. I wander through supermarkets and life like a zombie. Never getting upset. Never getting angry . . . / I did go shopping today. but / I had to leave. I stood in the jams and jellies for /fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, Alice. I couldn't decide . . ./ Mint Jelly or Orange Marmalade. I didn't know what I wanted . . . And for the first time in my life it / pissed me off. (She takes a drink) . . . I wanted to smash every jar on the shelf. Run through every aisle and knock everything to the floor. I wanted to / explode! . . . / But, I didn't. I was a good girl. / I went home and started drinking. (She sips at her drink)./ And I will continue to drink. Until the zombie returns. Until everything gets numb again.

If I needed it, I would double space the monologue and write the emotion that Julie is feeling above the part of the monologue in which she is feeling that emotion.

One more thing about beats is that some people definite a beat as the smallest portion of a script. So, if a character picks up a telephone receiver, that is one beat. If the character then places the receiver on his ear, that's another beat. If the character says, "Hello," that's a third beat.

Since beat is not clearly defined, it has taken me a long time to understand what the word means. It takes time to understand these concepts.