About the Play:

The Motherfucker with the Hat has become a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues.

The Motherfucker with the Hat (sometimes censored as The Motherf**ker with the Hat and The Mother with the Hat) is a full-length drama by Stephen Adly Guirgis who has been hailed as one of the most promising playwrights at work in America today. Jackie and Veronica have been in love since the eighth grade. Now Jackie is on parole, clean and sober under the guidance of his sponsor, Ralph D., while living and loving his volatile soulmate Veronica, who is far from sober. Their love is pure, and nothing can come between them – except a hat.

The Motherfucker with the Hat is set amongst New York's Puerto Rican community. Struggles with addiction, friendship, love, and the challenges of adulthood are at the center of the story. Jackie, a petty drug dealer, is just out of prison and trying to stay clean. He's also still in love with his coke-addicted childhood sweetheart, Veronica. Ralph D. is Jackie's too-smooth, slightly slippery sponsor. He's married to the bitter and disaffected Victoria, who, by the way, has the hots for Jackie. And then there's Julio, Jackie's cousin…a stand-up, "stand by me" kind of guy. Addiction, pain, and explosive tempers are not exactly what you'd call the ingredients for a side-splitting comedy. Yet Steven Adly Guiguis has created a profane, hilarious masterpiece that earned a "hatful" of theatrical accolades in 2011.

The Motherfucker with the Hat premiered in 2011 at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre and was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play. The cast starred Chris Rock in his Broadway debut as Ralph D. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in regional and college theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Stephen Adly Guirgis is our new reigning poet of the obscene… He's a master when it comes to creating cranky New Yorkers whose uninhibited talking jags reveal far more about them than they ever intended; more than any other contemporary playwright, his dialogue crackles with profane comedy that, no matter how stylized, seems absolutely true of his characters… Focusing on the challenges of recovery from addiction and what he sees as a fundamental disconnect between men and women, Guirgis spins a comic tragedy out of a situation that would almost certainly be described by one of his characters as totally f-ked up." — Lighting and Sound America

"Guirgis, a brilliant comedic talent…also has an original and knowing take on class, particularly as it plays out among the bottom-of-the-barrel working-class poor, who are virtually invisible to the wealthier men and women around them. Guirgis' characters are strivers who lack the language to 'pass' in a white-collar world; they're frustrated by limitations that they're only half aware of, and that frustration provides much of the painful hilarity in their dialogue, which piles miscommunication on top of misunderstanding." — New Yorker

"It's tight, smart and splendidly well-made, a tough-minded, unromantically romantic comedy that keeps you laughing, then sends you home thinking." — Wall Street Journal

"Funny indeed — not to mention surprising, disturbing and poignant…dark, rich comedy…By not putting characters or their dilemmas in neat boxes, Guirgis gives us, in HAT, a slice of hard life that's as provocative as it is absorbing." — USA Today

About the Playwright:

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. Born and raised in New York City by an Irish-American mother and Egyptian father, he studied theatre at the State University of New York in Albany before being recruited by John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman to join New York City's non-profit LAByrinth Theater Company, of which he later became a co-artistic director. His screenwriting credits have included TV shows such as NYPD Blue and The Sopranos, and his play Between Riverside and Crazy won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.