Monologue text
Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Information
Role: Judy, by nature a sunny soul.
Age: 21 years old
Place: Her room in college.
Monologue synopsis: Judy is an orphan. An affluential Trustees, whom has given large sums of money towards the asylum’s support and wanted to remain unknown shows interest on her case. When Judy was 17 years old and the asylum couldn’t keep her anymore this men offered to send her to college... to become a writer. Her board and tuition would be paid directly to the college. She would receive in addition during the four years she is there, an allowance of thirty-five dollars. In return, she would write a letter about her progress in studies and the details of her daily life. Just such a letter as she would write to your parents if they were living. In this last letter to her Daddy Long Legs we see, as the years gone by, the feelings that grew in her. Now she is 21 and she describes how she finally met him.
Age: 21 years old
Place: Her room in college.
Monologue synopsis: Judy is an orphan. An affluential Trustees, whom has given large sums of money towards the asylum’s support and wanted to remain unknown shows interest on her case. When Judy was 17 years old and the asylum couldn’t keep her anymore this men offered to send her to college... to become a writer. Her board and tuition would be paid directly to the college. She would receive in addition during the four years she is there, an allowance of thirty-five dollars. In return, she would write a letter about her progress in studies and the details of her daily life. Just such a letter as she would write to your parents if they were living. In this last letter to her Daddy Long Legs we see, as the years gone by, the feelings that grew in her. Now she is 21 and she describes how she finally met him.
Monologue
Judy: (She is writing the last letter to Daddy-long-legs) It was so dim coming in from the brightly lighted hall that for a moment I could scarcely make out anything; then I saw a big easy chair before the fire and a shining tea table with a smaller chair beside it. And I realized that a man was sitting in the big chair propped up by pillows with a rug over his knees. Before I could stop him he rose -rather shakily- and steadied himself by the back of the chair and just looked at me without a word. And then... and then... I saw it was you! But even with that I didn’t understand. I thought Daddy had had you come there to meet me or... a surprise...
Then you laughed and held out your hand and said: (Jane looks ahead and her face softens as she speaks.) «Dear little Judy, couldn’t you guess that I was Daddy Long Legs?» In an instant it flashed over me. (She stands up.) Oh, but I have been stupid! A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits. I wouldn’t make a very good detective, would I, Daddy? Jervie? What must I call you? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, and I can’t be disrespectful to you!
It was a very sweet half hour before your doctor came and sent me away. I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a train for St Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give me any tea. But we’re both very, very happy, aren’t we? I drove back to Lock Willow in the dark but oh, how the stars were shining! (She looks out of the window.) And this morning... I’ve been out with Colin visiting all the places that you and I went to together, and remembering what you said and how you looked. The woods today are burnished bronze and the air is full of frost. It’s CLIMBING weather...
(She sits down and writes again.) I wish you were here to climb the hills with me. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie dear, but it’s a happy kind of missing... We’ll be together soon. We belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn’t it seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, very sweet.
And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.
Yours, for ever and ever,
Judy
(She gets up again.) This is the first love-letter I ever wrote. Isn’t it funny that I know how? (Smiles)
Then you laughed and held out your hand and said: (Jane looks ahead and her face softens as she speaks.) «Dear little Judy, couldn’t you guess that I was Daddy Long Legs?» In an instant it flashed over me. (She stands up.) Oh, but I have been stupid! A hundred little things might have told me, if I had had any wits. I wouldn’t make a very good detective, would I, Daddy? Jervie? What must I call you? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, and I can’t be disrespectful to you!
It was a very sweet half hour before your doctor came and sent me away. I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a train for St Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give me any tea. But we’re both very, very happy, aren’t we? I drove back to Lock Willow in the dark but oh, how the stars were shining! (She looks out of the window.) And this morning... I’ve been out with Colin visiting all the places that you and I went to together, and remembering what you said and how you looked. The woods today are burnished bronze and the air is full of frost. It’s CLIMBING weather...
(She sits down and writes again.) I wish you were here to climb the hills with me. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie dear, but it’s a happy kind of missing... We’ll be together soon. We belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn’t it seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, very sweet.
And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.
Yours, for ever and ever,
Judy
(She gets up again.) This is the first love-letter I ever wrote. Isn’t it funny that I know how? (Smiles)
~An excerpt from Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster,
theatricalization by Aliki Katsavou~
theatricalization by Aliki Katsavou~
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