Cat Monologue | Cheshire

(Touches the corner of his mouth, then vanishes. A pause. Then only the smile remains in the darkness.)

In the pantheon of literary characters, few are as simultaneously beloved, baffling, and philosophically dense as Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat . While he appears for only a few pages in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , his presence lingers like his famous grin—floating in the cultural consciousness long after the body has disappeared. For actors, writers, and performance artists, the quest for the perfect Cheshire Cat monologue is a rite of passage. But what makes a monologue "Cheshire"? Is it the riddles? The gleeful nihilism? Or the specific cadence of a creature who knows he is mad, living in a world that has no rulebook? Cheshire Cat Monologue

It isn't a speech. It is a vanishing act performed with words. (Touches the corner of his mouth, then vanishes

No, no. You jumped. You just don’t remember. While he appears for only a few pages

As for me… I’m going to unexist now. Not disappear. Un-exist. There’s a difference. One leaves a shadow. The other leaves a question.