Throughout Sweet Bird of Youth, I was reminded of the Saturday Night Live sketch about the game show, "Secret Word," with the recurring guest of the washed-up Broadway star who can't seem to let go of her previous stardom. The Broadway star, called Mindy Elise Grayson, is portrayed by Kristen Wiig.
The reason for my association was primarily caused by of the first lengthy speech Princess Kosmonopolis/Alexandra del Lago delivers. She's obsessed with her own art and own career, and diverges from her previous pattern of regular dialogue to pontificate upon her previous lifetime:
"They told me I was an artist, not just a star whose career depended on youth...There's nowhere else to retire to when you retire from an art because, believe it or not, I really was once an artist. So I retired to the moon, but the atmosphere of the moon doesn't have any oxygen in it..." (p 33).
It's very hard for me to take her character seriously, as she comes off to me nothing more than a superficial alcoholic obsessed with youth and beauty (soap opera material much?). Actually, nearly everyone in this play came off to me as superficial and selfish. But the Princess in particular struck me with her bubble-headed daze and her histrionic, compulsive behavior. She seems to me like the type of person who dwells on the Olay commercials, yearning to look 10 years younger, refusing to compromise with herself and her future.
At the end, when her picture is successful, I'm left deeply unsatisfied. Am I supposed to be happy that her picture breaks records and is successful, despite her doubts? I don't really want to be. It seems too much of a cop-out. I mean, yes I get that ultimately she will age and lose fame, especially with the last line of "the enemy, time, in us all," and that her success is only temporary, but somehow a much more depressing "no-one-wins, especially-not-the-psychotic-actress" ending would have left me a little more content. But I guess a happy ending sells better.
-Carrie
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