Sweet Southern Birds Fly to Dudley

SWEET BIRDS OF YOUTH

Location: Dudley House

DATE: May 6, 7

Director: Eleni Andreadis

producer: Bryan Sun

This weekend, Southern belles and charm will visit New England as Dudley Drama presents, “Sweet Bird of Youth.”

True to the traditions of Tennesee Williams’s characteristically grandiose Southern dramatic style, lies seethe, childhood romances reignite, and drunken desperate drama unfurls in this play, which follows Hollywood gigolo Chance Wayne (Andrés X. López, an extension school student)—accompanied by fading Hollywood actress Alexandra—as he returns to his small town.

As Kennedy School of Government student and Director Eleni Andreadis tells it, it was precisely the famously tragic American elements of the story that drew her to the play. Indeed, the London-trained actress and first-time director said, “Coming from the U.K., I have already done plays by the sort of Oscar Wildes and other typical British playwrights. Being here, now, in the States, I was really excited to do something by an American playwright—in particular, Tennesse Williams.”

“Sweet Bird” is by no means Tennessee Williams’s most well-regarded play and, in fact, received deep criticism when it was first produced in 1959 for its slow-moving plot. But Andreadis suggests that its obscurity made “Sweet Bird” an even more attractive production. According to Andreadis, freed from the trappings of fulfilling audience’s preconceived expectations, “Sweet Bird” offers both a greater challenge and opportunity to create an innovative production than Williams’ more well-established productions, like “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

This weekend, Dudley Drama enthusiastically accepts the invitation to inject its own flavor into the production, casting a set of actors who, like the residents of the Dudley House, range in age and daytime occupations, from undergraduate to graduate students. In fact, the production even boasts that they cast member from each of Harvard’s ten graduate and professional schools, with the exception of the School of Public Health.

The diversity of life experience among the “Sweet Birds” cast members has been a unique asset in the production, not only because the actors could portray roles closer to their true age. Indeed, Andreadis points out that the co-inclusion of, and interaction between, youthful undergraduate and more mature graduate students in the production further introduced a unique layer of truth into the production, due to the May-December relationship between Chance and Alexandra. “Because of the diversity of the group, the relationships have developed in such a way that the true age relationship helps a lot,” Andreadis said.

López further credits cooperative acting process between the age groups for the production’s unique flair.

Citing Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, López, commented that such an age gap in relationships between a young man and older woman “seems to be en vogue.” He has high hopes for the production’s appeal, partially because the story represents “good timing on the director’s part.”

Indeed, recent events and the accessibility of this talented production suggest that it is the right time for interpreters and viewers to look back at this classic work.

—Staff writer Vinita M. Alexander can be reached at valexand@fas.harvard.edu.