Life_and_Death_in_'Sweet_Bird_of_Youth'

American Lecture: Life & Death in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ (1959) 17/12/09 • Self delusion, denial and identity • Play produced in 1959 in final form but had complicated production history. Was originally written as a homosexual relationship, but at the time this could not be represented. Williams believed a male and female relationship would be more dramatically viable. • Williams fused together 2 stories, to bring together the personal and the political. • 1950’s: Williams was under personal strain, and had a high production rate, he has a series of mental collapses, complex and they began with the guilt about his sister rose who was given a lobotomy to cure a mental illness in 1930’s. He continually felt guilt about his family conspiring to do this. • He was drinking and taking a lot of drugs through 1950’s, which is shown with Princess and Chance in this play as well as some of his other lays • In terms of symbolism, his use of this becomes part of his concept ‘plastic theatre’ first mentioned in production notes to Glass Menagerie and is about the mis en sen-different elements of staging, lighting, music, set, props: going together to heighten the characters state of mind, exposing major themes in the play by using this whole theatrical experience, he was creating a realism that was more real and not stage realism. • Quote 1: core to Williams’s dramatic technique where symbolism is woven into the fabric of the play. • The starting point of this symbolist idea grew from Williams’ influence by the European symbolists. • The symbolist concept: to provide an experimental technique and to move away from rigid ideas about art forms, dwelling on non narrative methods art form is not about telling a story but about the creation of atmosphere and emotion through the use of visual imagery. • The use of music: in language and actual music on stage, guides the rhythm of the symbolism in the play a stage further. • Symbolists used symbols that were deeply personal to their own lives (elevation of the artists-the artist being an important and influential figure). • Williams focused on the figure of the artist or the poet-an outsider away from society, but able to comment better on society because of this. • In the play, Williams uses 3 types of symbols: - Classical/Mythological, - Christian - Freudian 1. Express ideas about the deeper meaning of the play. Chances’ name is atrominic, his name is to do with destiny and he is reliant on luck and not talent (unlike the princess) because of this, he unable to succeed in life. The Princess is related to Cassandra: a self-destructive woman who foretells the future. The Princess thinks she can see the future, but then she discovers that it was a great success. She foretells hers and Chances’ future, and they can never recapture their former glory. The name that she takes on is a Greek term about the state/nature of the universe. Williams is saying that this is not just the personal tragedy of the individual but also the tragedy of the human kind. 2. A deeply ironic use of illusion. Chance is bought down by love, Adonis is saved by love, he is youthful whereas Chance looses his hair and not successful. Adonis is seen as a fertility symbol and Chance is connected with baroness because of the STD he has given a woman. 3. Chance is destroying Heavenly but in loving her, he destroys himself. • St Cloud represents the higher realm where he is going to meet Heavenly, which puts this in a religious framework. • Chance goes further towards his doom by going back to the place where he used to live. • The title of the play: Williams has a lot of imagery of birds throughout his work, so this becomes a central image where there is an idea of escape of flight. There is an irony here where the characters are trapped by the past. The whole play is about the impossibility of going back to the past. • The act of fleeing: (Blanche in Streetcar) Princess moves from Hollywood. There is a comparatively easy solution to this concept of escape for the Princess, she learns that her film has been a huge hit. This is contrasted with Chance when he thinks. • Both characters represent this figure of the artist, which is personal to Williams, he represents himself as much as characters and others in society. • Christian Illusion: religion runs right through his plays and he ended up converting to roman Catholicism in 1969 where the whole idea of his water imagery becomes more obvious with Sreetcar and this play too. The idea of water creates an image of baptism, changing who you are, washing away the scenes (Blanche-Streetcar). In this play you have cathedral bells ringing, the choir and Chance in white silk pj’s which identifies him as a Christ like figure, he wants to save Heavenly, the woman that he loved, he wants to save her from her family, and save her from the bigatory from the small town in which they have lived. He is unsuccessful here, he is not a figure of salvation. His guilt over his treatment of her results in him to go willingly to be symbolically cruscified. We see a reworking of Williams idea of sexuality here. • Chance arrives on Easter Sunday-tied up with Christian symbolism, persecuted which leads to your death, Christ is resurrected which leads to the salvation of everyone on earth. Chance arrives to save H and in doing that he is not able to do it successfully, he cannot turn back the clock. • Sweet Bird…works over the same imagery and themes that are very much central to Williams as a person as well as to the rest of his work. • In the play Chance confesses to the Princess, he refuses and knows that his behaviour has made him an outcast and a sexual degenerate. He knows that he is guilty and has to be punished for this. The last lines, where Chance steps out of character to deliver straight to the audience “I do not ask for your pity or your understanding…” Although these lines are often cut by the director-seen as bathos, sentimental rather than pathos, it is interesting to see what Williams is doing here, he wants the audience to make a connection between themselves and the character of Chance. He is drawing on a medieval reality play here. In the medieval morality plays, it has more moral and religious ramifications, but Williams draws on his religious symbolism. These lines are metrification-stepping out of the world of the play. Audience encouraged to share in Chances’ atonement for his sins. • Chance is an ambiguous figure-who is he trying to save' Although Williams sympathies lie with the character of chance, and wants to see some good in him. • Bosfinley-talks on the voice of god. Here we see a distortion of religious values where his morality is all about racial and sexual, control and power, rather than the true meaning of religion, as Williams would see it. • Freudian fairytale: • Williams is careful to say that this play is not about incest, but about a deep connection between father and daughter, that he can recognise the beauty of her, but not be sexually attracted to her. • In following her career, she has become a monster. Chance also describes himself as a monster. Boss Finley is seen as a political monster who holds power over the whole town. • Cinderella: character has turned herself in to the Princess; she is able to recreate herself in her acting profession as well as her actual life. The Cinderella myth also rides along with the American Dream. All ironic, Chance’ fortunes have not risen, they have fallen. Boss Finley can be seen as a Cinderella figure, rising from obscurity. Demigod: gaining power by appealing to the prejudices of other people. He talks about keeping the bloodline pure in America/Hitler, keeping the bloodline pure in the Arian race. • Castration: 5 real instances within the play. Linked with Williams’s key themes, like time, illusion, identity, redemption. In terms of physical castration, you have Heavenly: infected with a STD by Chance when she was only 15, because of this she has had to have her womb removed, she describes herself as an ‘old, childless woman’ she is only a shell, there is nothing left she has been destroyed by Chance, and her father. She is a castrated character. • Boss finley: he is impotent and cannot ‘cut the mustard’ as his mistress, Lucy says. He has to function only in terms of power. • Chance will be castrated by BF’s men, this is a form of revenge by him for what has happened to his daughter, this can also be seen as a punishment for his sexual behaviour. Society saw STD’s as a pollutant, something dangerous. • People’s bodies are destroyed by time, we start to see how this erodes their sense of identity, and their physical appearance and health is also connected to social identity. The princess’ character is supposed to be based on Gloria Swanson in ‘Sunset Boulevard’. (see pic on handout) Princess creates a role on feminity, physical beauty and youth, which is basically what the Hollywood industry want. • There is a refusal to see how the female body has aged, and around this, there is an illusion created to stop people from seeing reality. • Symbolism in the clock which ticks in the last scene, which connects with another form of castration in the play with the Princess herself-the aging process that will wither away her career and take away her sense of identity. • Woman buying of the body and the man is doing the selling of the body • Williams fell out of favour in 1960’s as it was felt that he was too symbolic and it needed to be more real. People had to look forward and looking back did not allow people to progress: people were thinking differently now. Bibliography: 1. Long Day’s Journey into Night: London: Nick Hern Books Limited, 1991. 2. Three Great Plays: The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape: New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 2005. 3. Berlin, Normand. Eugene O’Neill. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. 4. Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth Century American Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 5. Bigsby, C.W.E and Don B. Wilmeth. The Cambridge History of American Theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 6. Bogard, Travis. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Revised ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. 7. Floyd, Virginia. Ed. Eugene O’Neill at Work: Newly Released Ideas for Plays. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. 8. Gelb, Arthur and Barbara. O’Neill. New York: Harper, 1960. 9. Miller, Jordan Y. Eugene O’Neill and the American Critic: A Summary and Bibliographical Checklist. Second edition, revised. Hamden, Connecticut, Archon, 1973. 10. Renald, Margaret Loftus. The Eugene O’Neill Companion. Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood, 1984. 11. Sheaffer, Louis. O’Neill: Son and Playwright. London: Dent, 1968.