Brighton Beach Memoirs auditions

[bwayobsessed]

So my school is doing Brighton Beach Memoirs this year and I think I have the best chance of being Stanley (the older brother). For the dramas, my director likes us to choose monologues from the show. Since Stanley doesn't have any real monologues, I pieced together 2 options from from a conversation he has with Eugene:

"It was on account of Andrew. The colored guy who sweeps up. Well, he was cleaning the floor in the stockroom and he lays his broom against the table to put some junk in the trash can and the broom slips, knocks a can of linseed oil over the table and ruins three brand-new hats right out of the box. Nine-dollar Stetsons. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t put the linseed oil there, right? Right. So Mr. Stroheim sees the oily hats and he gets crazy. He says to Andrew the hats are going to have to come out of his salary. Twenty-seven dollars. So Andrew starts to cry. Forty-two years old, he’s bawling all over the stockroom. I mean the man hasn’t got too much furniture upstairs anyway, but he’s real sweet. He brings me coffee, always laughing, telling me jokes. I never understand then but I laugh anyway, make him feel good, you know? (a beat) Anyway, I said to Mr. Stroheim I didn’t think that was fair. It wasn’t Andrew’s fault. So Mr. Stroheim says, “You wanna pay for the hats, big mouth?” So I said, “No. I don’t want to pay for the hats.” So he says, “Then mind your own business, big mouth.” "

"So guess what Mr. Stroheim tells me to do? (a beat) He tells me to sweep up. He say’s for this week I’m the cleaning man. Everybody is watching me now, waiting to see what I’m going to do. (EUGENE nods in agreement) Even Andrew stopped crying and watched. I feel the dignity of everyone who worked in that store was in my hands. So I grit my teeth and I pick up the broom, and there’s this big pile of dirt right in the middle of the floor……and I sweep it all over Mr. Stroheim’s shoes. Andrew had just finished shining them this morning, if you want to talk about irony. You could see everyone in the place is about to bust a gut. Mrs. Mulcahy, the book-keeper, can hardly keep her false teeth in her mouth. Andrew’s eyes are hanging five inches out of their sockets. So Mr. Stroheim grabs me and pulls me into his back office, closes the door, and pulls down the shades. He gives me this whole story how he was brought up in Germany to respect his superiors. That if he ever—( With an accent) “did soch a ting like you do, dey would beat me in der kopf until dey carried me avay dead.” And I say, “Yeah. But we’re not in Germany, old buddy.” Well...No. To myself. I didn’t want to go too far. Anyway, he says he’s always liked me and always thought I was a good boy and that he was going to give me one more chance. He wants a letter of apology. And that if the letter isn’t on his desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I can consider myself fired. I don’t know why I did it. But I got so mad. It just wasn’t fair. I mean, if you give in when you’re eighteen and a half, you’ll give in for the rest of your life, don’t you think?"

Both of these monologues are from the same conversation. I made the cuts based on the required length. Personally, I like the second one (especially the emotions towards the end), but I worry that the story he's telling doesn't make sense without the introduction. However, I also think that since the director knows the play so well it might not matter if there's a little gap. I apologize for the enormous post and I thank anyone who is still reading! Any help would be appreciated!