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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 177 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 177, July/August 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Sweet Bird of Youth
by Tennessee Williams
In much modern drama it has become fashionable to drop themes of class struggle, oppression and resistance. This has led to a very shallow approach where the characters are often stereotypical and the emotions bland and unconvincing.
Sweet Bird of Youth takes the opposite view. It is a compelling drama which deals with all the manifestations of power from politics and religion to cynical emotional manipulation. It shows how power crushes human relations – love, friendship, trust – leaving the characters disoriented and afraid.
The play tells the story of Chance Wayne, his travelling companion Alexandra del Lago, his childhood sweetheart Heavenly Finley, and her father Boss Finley.
Chance is a schemer, trying to win the fame or fortune he thinks will get Heavenly back. Alexandra is a Hollywood star fleeing the first night of her latest film.
The play starts with Chance returning to his home town of St Cloud trying to win back Heavenly. But the people of St Cloud, a Southern US town rich in prejudice and reaction, don’t want Chance back with his shady past and free spirit.
Across town Boss Finley is enraged to find out that Chance has returned. He is in the midst of a political campaign and his daughter’s relationship with a degenerate like Chance is unacceptable. He arranges for his son and his hired thugs to get Chance and Alexandra out of town.
Boss Finley is revealed bit by bit in all his capitalist horror. He splits up Heavenly and Chance wrecking both their lives in the process. He is vilely racist, talking of the purity of white youth and not criticising the castration of a black man by racist thugs.
In the next scene Chance faces his own friends in the cocktail lounge. Their rejection of his independence and their bigotry are mirrored by his degeneration.
He may have escaped the stifling atmosphere of St Cloud only to be crushed by false hopes of wealth and stardom. Then Alexandra appears in a worse state – panicked and drugged, staggering and collapsing.
Both societies stand condemned. Chance has been crushed by each in turn. Finally, Heavenly appears in white like the Virgin Mary. Chance is thunderstruck, and realises his actions brought about Heavenly’s destruction. This is the turning point of the play. Heavenly has accepted defeat, Chance accepts his fate.
Alexandra finds out that the film has been a big success and leaves, but Chance refuses to go with her.
There are glimmers of hope, above all in the relationship between Chance and Alexandra. He keeps helping her in her panics, and she discovers through helping him that she has not lost all her humanity. And they all resist: Heavenly won’t pretend to be happy for her father, Chance won’t leave town and Alexandra keeps going.
The set brilliantly highlights the mood and conflicts of the play. The director has adapted the play to maximise the tension. The sets are all hemmed in from the back: the blinds of the bedroom that go up for ever, the wall of Boss Finley’s terrace. The stage curtains are used like film shutters to confine the action.
In one scene the stage is fragmented, everyone looking in different directions, under different lighting.
In spite of the brilliant way this play exposes how power destroys people and shows resistance to it, there is still something missing. The castration case is used as background, but the black characters have little to say. The claustrophobic atmosphere shuts out the mass forces capable of doing more than simply comforting each other.
Sweet Bird of Youth plays at the National Theatre London until September
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