Julia Bride
by Henry JamesGenre: Drama
Setting:
Format of Original Source: Short Story
Recommended Adaptation Length: 15 Minutes
Candidate for Adaptation? Promising
EXCERPT:
Julia Bride, shunned by society because her parents have divorced, begs her father to announce that the divorce was HIS fault, and that HE was the one who behaved badly, so that she herself might have a chance in society. Her father has other plans for Julia, hoping that she will protest that HE has behaved magnanimously, so that a rich widow he is pursuing might marry him. Will the Julia Bride sacrifice herself for her father’s societal happiness?
An excerpt:
he had gone on, and to such effect that it took them but three minutes to turn out, on either side, like a pair of pickpockets comparing, under shelter, their day’s booty, the treasures of design concealed about their persons.
“I want you to tell the truth for me–as you only can. I want you to say that I was really all right–as right as you know; and that I simply acted like an angel in a story-book, gave myself away to have it over.”
“Why, my dear man,” Julia cried, “you take the wind straight out of my sails! What I’m here to ask of you is that you’ll confess to having been even a worse fiend than you were shown up for; to having made it impossible mother should not take proceedings.” There!–she had brought it out, and with the sense of their situation turning to high excitement for her in the teeth of his droll stare, his strange grin, his characteristic “Lordy, lordy! What good will that do you?”
COMMENTS:
Scott writes: I must confess to not being able to follow this story, and needed to refer to a synopsis on the internet to get it. And, at the end of the day, it’s basically a conversation, rather than a story. Still…her dilemma is actually quite interesting, and might make a satisfying short musical.
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