Sweet Bird of Youth

  where he's been waiting at the other end of the corridor and slowly, cautiously, approaches the entrance to the room. Wind sweeps the Palm Garden; it seems to dissolve the walls; the rest of the play is acted against the night sky. The shuttered doors on the veranda open and Chance

  enters the room. He has gone a good deal farther across the border of reason since we last saw him. The Princess isn't aware of his entrance until he slams the shuttered doors. She turns,

  startled, to face him.]

  PRINCESS: Chance!

  CHANCE: You had some company here.

  PRINCESS: Some men were here looking for you. They told me I wasn't welcome in this hotel

  and this town because I had come here with 'a criminal degenerate'. I asked them to get me a

  driver so I can go.

  CHANCE: I'm your driver. I'm still your driver, Princess.

  PRINCESS: You couldn't drive through the palm garden.

  CHANCE: I'll be all right in a minute.

  PRINCESS: It takes more than a minute. Chance, will you listen to me? Can you listen to me? I listened to you this morning, with understanding and pity, I did, I listened with pity to your story this morning. I felt something in my heart for you which I thought I couldn't feel. I

  remembered young men who were what you are or what you're hoping to be. I saw them all

  clearly, all clearly, eyes, voices, smiles, bodies clearly. But their names wouldn't come back to me. I couldn't get their names back without digging into old programs of plays that I starred in at twenty in which they said, 'Madam, the Count's waiting for you,' or--Chance? They almost

  made it. Oh, oh, Franz! Yes, Franz . . . what? Albertzart. Franz Albertzart, oh God, God, Franz Albertzart . . . I had to fire him. He held me too tight in the waltz scene, his anxious fingers left bruises once so violent, they, they dislocated a disc in my spine, and--

  CHANCE: I'm waiting for you to shut up.

  PRINCESS: I saw him in Monte Carlo not too long ago. He was with a woman of seventy, and

  his eyes looked older than hers. She held him, she led him by an invisible chain through Grand Hotel . . . lobbies and casinos and bars like a blind, dying lap dog; he wasn't much older than you are now. Not long after that he drove his Alfa-Romeo or Ferrari off the Grand Corniche--

  accidentally?--Broke his skull like an eggshell. I wonder what they found in it? Old, despaired-of ambitions, little treacheries, possibly even little attempts at blackmail that didn't quite come off, and whatever traces are left of really great charm and sweetness. Chance, Franz Albertzart is Chance Wayne. Will you please try to face it so we can go on together?

  CHANCE [pulls away from her]: Are you through? Have you finished?

  PRINCESS: You didn't listen, did you?

  CHANCE [picking up the phone]: I didn't have to. I told you that story this morning--I'm not

  going to drive off nothing and crack my head like an eggshell.

  PRINCESS: No, because you can't drive.

  CHANCE: Operator? Long distance.

  PRINCESS: You would drive into a palm tree. Franz Albertzart . . .

  CHANCE: Where's your address book, your book of telephone numbers?

  PRINCESS: I don't know what you think that you are up to, but it's no good. The only hope for you now is to let me lead you by that invisible loving steel chain through Carltons and Ritzes and Grand Hotels and--

  CHANCE: Don't you know, I'd die first? I would rather die first . . . [into phone] Operator?

  This is an urgent person-to-person call from Miss Alexandra Del Lago to Miss Sally Powers in

  Beverly Hills, California. . . .

  PRINCESS: Oh, no! . . . Chance!

  CHANCE: Miss Sally Powers, the Hollywood columnist, yes, Sally Powers. Yes, well get

  information. I'll wait, I'll wait. . . .

  PRINCESS: Her number is Cold water five-nine thousand. . . . [Her hand goes to her mouth--

  but too late.]

  CHANCE: In Beverly Hills, California, Coldwater five-nine thousand.

  [The Princess moves out on to forestage; surrounding areas dim till nothing is clear

  behind her but the palm garden.]

  PRINCESS: Why did I give him the number? Well, why not, after all, I'd have to know sooner

  or later . . . I started to call several times, picked up the phone, put it down again. Well, let him do it for me. Something's happened. I'm breathing freely and deeply as if the panic was over.

  Maybe it's over. He's doing the dreadful thing for me, asking the answer for me. He doesn't

  exist for me now except as somebody making this awful call for me, asking the answer for me.

  The light's on me. He's almost invisible now. What does that mean? Does it mean that I still

  wasn't ready to be washed up, counted out?

  CHANCE: All right, call Chasen's. Try to reach her at Chasen's.

  PRINCESS: Well, one thing's sure. It's only this call I care for. I seem to be standing in light with everything else dimmed out. He's in the dimmed out background as if he'd never left the

  obscurity he was born in. I've taken the light again as a crown on my head to which I am suited by something in the cells of my blood and body from the time of my birth. It's mine, I was born to own it, as he was born to make this phone call for me to Sally Powers, dear faithful custodian of my outlived legend. [Phone rings in distance.] The legend that I've out-lived. . . . Monsters

  don't die early; they hang on long. Awfully long. Their vanity's infinite, almost as infinite as their disgust with themselves. . . . [Phone rings louder: it brings the stage light back up on the hotel bedroom. She turns to Chance and the play returns to a more realistic level.] The phone's still ringing.

  CHANCE: They gave me another number. . . .

  PRINCESS: If she isn't there, give my name and ask them where I can reach her.

  CHANCE: Princess?

  PRINCESS: What?

  CHANCE: I have a personal reason for making this phone call.

  PRINCESS: I'm quite certain of that.

  CHANCE [into phone]: I'm calling for Alexandra Del Lago. She wants to speak to Miss Sally

  Powers--Oh, is there any number where the Princess could reach her?

  PRINCESS: It will be a good sign if they give you a number.

  CHANCE: Oh?--Good, I'll call that number . . . Operator? Try another number for Miss Sally

  Powers. It's Canyon seven-five thousand. . . . Say it's urgent, it's Princess Kosmonopolis. . . .

  PRINCESS: Alexandra Del Lago.

  CHANCE: Alexandra Del Lago is calling Miss Powers.

  PRINCESS [to herself]: Oxygen, please, a little. . . .

  CHANCE: Is that you, Miss Powers? This is Chance Wayne talking. . . . I'm calling for the

  Princess Kosmonopolis, she wants to speak to you. She'll come to the phone in a minute.

  PRINCESS: I can't. . . . Say I've . . .

  CHANCE [stretching phone cord]: This is as far as I can stretch the cord, Princess, you've got to meet it halfway.

  [Princess hesitates; then advances to the extended phone.]

  PRINCESS [in a low, strident whisper]: Sally? Sally? Is it really you, Sally? Yes, it's me,

  Alexandra. It's what's left of me, Sally. Oh, yes, I was there, but I only stayed a few minutes.

  Soon as they started laughing in the wrong places, I fled up the aisle and into the street

  screaming 'Taxi'--and never stopped running till now. No, I've talked to nobody, heard nothing, read nothing . . . just wanted--dark . . . What? You're just being kind.

  CHANCE [as if to himself]: Tell her that you've discovered a pair of new stars. Two of them.

  PRINCESS: One moment, Sally, I'm--breathless!

  CHANCE [gripping her arm]: And lay it on thick. Tell her to break it tomorrow in her column,

  in all of her columns, and in her radio talks . . . that you've discovered a pair of young people who are the stars of tomorrow!

  PRINCESS [to Chance]: Go in
to the bathroom. Stick your head under cold water. . . . Sally . . .

  Do you really think so? You're not just being nice, Sally, because of old times--Grown, did you say? My talent? In what way, Sally? More depth? More what, did you say? More power!--well,

  Sally, God bless you, dear Sally.

  CHANCE: Cut the chatter. Talk about me and HEAVENLY!

  PRINCESS: No, of course I didn't read the reviews. I told you I flew, I flew. I flew as fast and fast as I could. Oh. Oh? Oh . . . How very sweet of you, Sally. I don't even care if you're not altogether sincere in that statement, Sally. I think you know what the past fifteen years have been like, because I do have the--'out-crying heart of an--artist'. Excuse me, Sally, I'm crying, and I don't have any Kleenex. Excuse me, Sally, I'm crying. . . .

  CHANCE [hissing behind her]: Hey. Talk about me! [She kicks Chance's leg.]

  PRINCESS: What's that, Sally? Do you really believe so? Who? For what part? Oh, my God! . .

  . Oxygen, oxygen, quick!

  CHANCE [seizing her by the hair and hissing]: Me! Me!--You bitch!

  PRINCESS: Sally? I'm too overwhelmed. Can I call you back later? Sally, I'll call back later. . .

  . [She drops phone in a daze of rapture.] My picture has broken box-office records. In New

  York and L. A.!

  CHANCE: Call her back, get her on the phone.

  PRINCESS: Broken box-office records. The greatest comeback in the history of the industry,

  that's what she calls it.

  CHANCE: You didn't mention me to her.

  PRINCESS [to herself]: I can't appear, not yet. I'll need a week in a clinic, then a week or ten days at the Morning Star Ranch at Vegas. I'd better get Ackermann down there for a series of

  shots before I go on to the Coast. . . .

  CHANCE [at phone]: Come back here, call her again.

  PRINCESS: I'll leave the car in New Orleans and go on by plane to, to, to--Tucson. I'd better get Strauss working on publicity for me. I'd better be sure my tracks are covered up well these last few weeks in--hell!--

  CHANCE: Here. Here, get her back on this phone.

  PRINCESS: Do what?

  CHANCE: Talk about me and talk about Heavenly to her.

  PRINCESS: Talk about a beach-boy I picked up for pleasure, distraction from panic? Now?

  When the nightmare is over? Involve my name, which is Alexandra Del Lago, with the record

  of a--You've just been using me. Using me. When I needed you downstairs you shouted, 'Get

  her a wheel chair!' Well, I didn't need a wheel chair, I came up alone, as always. I climbed back alone up the beanstalk to the ogre's country where I live, now, alone. Chance, you've gone past something you couldn't afford to go past; your time, your youth, you've passed it. It's all you had, and you've had it.

  CHANCE: Who in hell's talking! Look. [He turns her forcibly to the mirror.] Look in that

  mirror. What do you see in that mirror?

  PRINCESS: I see--Alexandra Del Lago, artist and star! Now it's your turn, you look and what

  do you see?

  CHANCE: I see--Chance Wayne. . . .

  PRINCESS: The face of a Franz Albertzart, a face that tomorrow's sun will touch without

  mercy. Of course, you were crowned with laurel in the beginning, your gold hair was wreathed

  with laurel, but the gold is thinning and the laurel has withered. Face it--pitiful monster.

  [She touches the crown of his head,]

  . . . Of course, I know I'm one too. But one with a difference. Do you know what that

  difference is? No, you don't know. I'll tell you. We are two monsters, but with this difference between us. Out of the passion and torment of my existence I have created a thing that I can

  unveil, a sculpture, almost heroic, that I can unveil, which is true. But you? You've come back to the town you were born in, to a girl that won't see you because you put such rot in her body she had to be gutted and hung on a butcher's hook, like a chicken dressed for Sunday. . . .

  [He wheels about to strike at her but his raised fist changes its course and strikes down

  at his own belly and he bends double with a sick cry. Palm Garden wind: whisper of the

  'Lament'.]

  Yes, and her brother who was one of my callers, threatens the same thing for you:

  castration, if you stay here.

  CHANCE: That can't be done to me twice. You did that to me this morning, here on this bed, where I had the honor, where I had the great honor . . .

  [Windy sound rises: they move away from each other, he to the bed, she close to her

  portable dressing table.]

  PRINCESS: Age does the same thing to a woman. . . . [Scrapes pearls and pillboxes off table

  top into handbag.] Well . . .

  [All at once her power is exhausted, her fury gone. Something uncertain appears in her

  face and voice betraying the fact which she probably suddenly knows, that her future course is not a progression of triumphs. She still maintains a grand air as she snatches up her platinum mink stole and tosses it about her: it slides immediately off her shoulders; she doesn't seem to notice. He picks the stole up for her, puts it about her shoulders. She grunts disdainfully, her back to him; then resolution falters; she turns to face him with great, dark eyes that are fearful, lonely, and tender.]

  PRINCESS: I am going, now, on my way. [He nods slightly, loosening the Windsor-knot of his

  knitted black silk tie. Her eyes stay on him.] Well, are you leaving or staying?

  CHANCE: Staying.

  PRINCESS: You can't stay here. I'll take you to the next town.

  CHANCE: Thanks but no thank you, Princess.

  PRINCESS [seizing his arm]: Come on, you've got to leave with me. My name is connected

  with you, we checked in here together. Whatever happens to you, my name will be dragged in

  with it.

  CHANCE: Whatever happens to me's already happened.

  PRINCESS: What are you trying to prove?

  CHANCE: Something's got to mean something, don't it, Princess? I mean like your life means

  nothing, except that you never could make it, always almost, never quite? Well, something's

  still got to mean something.

  PRINCESS: I'll send a boy up for my luggage. You'd better come down with my luggage.

  CHANCE: I'm not part of your luggage,

  PRINCESS: What else can you be?

  CHANCE: Nothing . . . but not part of your luggage.

  [note: in this area it is very important that Chance's attitude should be self-recognition

  but not self-pity--a sort of deathbed dignity and honesty apparent in it. In both Chance and the Princess, we should return to the huddling-together of the lost, but not with sentiment, which is false, but with whatever is truthful in the moments when people share doom, face firing squads together. Because the Princess is really equally doomed. She can't turn back the clock any more than can Chance, and the clock is equally relentless to them both. For the Princess: a little, very temporary, return to, recapture of, the spurious glory. The report from Sally Powers may be and probably is a factually accurate report: but to indicate she is going on to further triumph would be to falsify her future. The Princess makes this instinctive admission to herself when she sits down by Chance on the bed, facing the audience. Both are faced with castration, and in her

  heart she knows it. They sit side by side on the bed like two passengers on a train sharing a bench.]

  PRINCESS: Chance, we've got to go on.

  CHANCE: Go on to where? I couldn't go past my youth, but I've gone past it.

  [The 'Lament' fades in, continues through the scene to the last curtain.]

  PRINCESS: You're still young, Chance.

  CHANCE: Princess, the age of some people can only be calculated by the level of--level of--rot in them. And by that measure I'm ancient.

  PRINCESS: What am I?--I know, I'm dead, as old Egypt. . . . Isn't it f
unny? We're still sitting here together, side by side in this room, like we were occupying the same bench on a train--

  going on together. . . . Look. That little donkey's marching around and around to draw water out of a well. . . . [She points off at something as if outside a train window.] Look, a shepherd boy's leading a flock.--What an old country, timeless.--Look--[The sound of a clock ticking is heard, louder and louder.]

  CHANCE: No, listen. I didn't know there was a clock in this room.

  PRINCESS: I guess there's a clock in every room people live in. . . .

  CHANCE: It goes tick-tick, it's quieter than your heart-beat, but it's slow dynamite, a gradual explosion, blasting the world we lived in to burnt-out pieces. . . . Time--who could beat it, who could defeat it ever? Maybe some saints and heroes, but not Chance Wayne. I lived on