Sweet Bird of Youth

The play is primarily set at the Royal Palms Hotel in the fictional town of St. Cloud, Florida, on the Gulf Coast. The grand hotel has a “Moorish” design. On the grounds is a palm garden. The sound of the wind blowing through the palm leaves is referred to as “The Lament.”

The play opens in a room at the hotel. It is morning. On the hotel bed is a middle-aged woman sleeping with an eye mask while a shirtless young man, Chance Wayne, sits up beside her, lighting a cigarette. The woman is a film star named Alexandera Del Lago. Chance and the script refer to her as Princess Kosmnomopolis, the name by which she introduced herself to Chance.

A Black member of the hotel staff, dubbed “Fly,” arrives with coffee and Alka-Seltzer (“bromo”). Chance asks Fly to prepare the medicine for him because his hands are shaking from his hangover. They hear church bells and a church choir nearby singing “The Alleluia Chorus.” Fly explains that it is Easter Sunday.

Fly leaves, and George Scudder, the medical director at the local hospital, knocks on the door. Chance lets him in. Scudder explains that the assistant manager of the hotel called that morning to tell him that Chance had returned to his hometown of St. Cloud. Chance says that he came back to see his mother and his “girl,” Heavenly. Scudder says that Chance’s mother died weeks ago. He did not have an address for Chance, but he tried to contact him to let him know. Scudder also tells Chance that he sent him a letter about Heavenly’s “tragic ordeal, because of past contact with you” (22). Scudder and Heavenly are now engaged to be married. Shaken by this, Chance collapses. After Scudder leaves, Chance tries to call Aunt Nonnie, Heavenly’s aunt, but she hangs up on him.

The Princess cries out in her sleep. She wakes from a nightmare and asks Chance for her oxygen mask, her pills, and vodka. He provides these. The assistant hotel manager, Mr. Hatcher, then calls the room and says that the manager wants them to check out. Chance explains that the Princess is unwell and that they cannot leave yet. He hangs up.

Chance takes out a tape recorder and sets it to record. He tells the Princess that she has put on weight “after that disappointment [she] had last month” (28). The Princess seems confused about who Chance is and how they met. She asks for her glasses. Chance explains that one of the lenses is broken from an incident the night before but that she knows what he looks like. The Princess begins to touch Chance’s chest. He moves away from her, and, angry, she demands that he take the broken lens out of her glasses. She asks for the phone, but he holds her “like a trapped rabbit” (32), preventing her from using it. He tells her that the day before, they drove through Tallahassee and purchased vodka there. She had too much to drink, and he decided to stop in his hometown of St. Cloud.

The Princess tries to go to the window, but she is too drunk and disoriented to make it and collapses. Chance helps her into the bed. She asks him to get out her hash. He does so, rolling a hash cigarette for her. He asks her how she acquired the hash. She explains that a doctor imported it to “a shifty young gentleman who thought he could blackmail [her] for it” (36). Then, she monologues about how it was ridiculous to think that she could mount a comeback as a middle-aged woman. She tells Chance that when she saw her face in the close-up at her recent movie premiere, she was so horrified at the sight that she fled the theater.

When her cigarette goes out, Chance hands her another. He asks her leading questions to get her to admit that the hash is hers and that she introduced him to it. He reveals that they met when he smelled the hash outside her room at a hotel in Palm Beach, where he worked. He introduced himself to her under the false name “Carl.” Princess goes to the window, and The Lament is heard. Chance explains that the Princess agreed to put him under contract as an actor with a movie studio and that they signed legal papers to that effect. However, Chance doubts that she will hold up her end of the bargain, so he has recorded her admission about the hash on the tape recorder to blackmail her. She is furious, but then she resolves to make the situation work in her favor. She intimates to Chance that she will give him a substantial sum in traveler’s checks if he makes her “almost believe that [they’re] a pair of young lovers without any shame” (48), i.e., if they sleep together.