Sweet Bird of Youth

'Tennessee Williams's mordantly funny and deeply troubled meditation on the desperate dismay of ageing and the iniquities of racial bigotry.' INDEPENDENT
'It's a wonderfully weird play, starting claustrophobic, losing intensity as it introduces the locals... then regrouping for a devastating second half... This unruly, unforgettable play takes its unpredictable course to something that makes you feel afresh our powerlessness against time.' THE TIMES
When Chance Wayne left the small town of St. Cloud, he did so with the ambition of being an actor: now, many years later, he returns as a gigolo and the companion of faded movie star Alexandra del Lago. But can Chance convince the town he did actually make it big and win over his childhood sweetheart? Or will the mistakes of his past punish him still?
Sweet Bird of Youth is Tennessee Williams's 1959 Broadway hit that explores the social and political climate of 1950s America, at a time when sexual freedom was a critical issue.
This edition includes an introduction by Alison Walls that explores the play's production history as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards.
Alison Walls is Artistic Director at The Court Theatre, New Zealand. She holds a PhD from The Graduate Center, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MA from Victoria University of Wellington. Publications include a monograph on nineteenth-century French literature, articles in The New Zealand Journal of French Studies, Language and Literature, Studies in Musical Theatre, The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, Theatre Journal, and The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and a chapter in The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. She has taught Theatre and Performance Studies in the U.S., China, and New Zealand.

Chronology
Introduction
Development of the play (Williams's state of mind, process and different iterations; collaboration with Elia Kazan)
Historical, Social and Cultural Contexts (segregation; sexual freedom; political climate; Williams's other plays)
Characters (allegorical names; African-American characters)
Setting (St. Cloud; hotel; Easter weekend)
Style and language (poetic realism; imagery; music)
Themes (corruption/purity; violence; religion; sex; race; beauty; public image; politics)
Productions and response (original cast; subsequent notable productions; reviews; film adaptations)
Academic Debate
Further Study
Sweet Bird of Youth
Notes