By Caitlin Woodstock

The Northeastern University Theatre Department took the audience back in time to the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s; to a small intimate hotel room with Venetian blinds and a luxurious double bed of two hopeless drifters.

The production of Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth,” exhibited talented NU students transforming the Studio Theater into the small town of St. Cloud, where an externally polished society proves to be a Pandora’s Box filled with the poisons that bring down humanity.

Written between “Suddenly Last Summer” and “The Night of the Iguana,” Williams weaves a tale about deflation of purity, the monotony of endless nights devoted to drowning sorrows in a 20-ounce bottle of vodka and the youth that flies away as soon as we try to immortalize and behold it.

The size of the Studio Theatre proved to be very effective for this production as simple design and set elements were emphasized in the small space. Bottles of prescription pills on stage right, suitcases piled up on stage left and one lonely bottle of vodka on the desk caught the audience’s attention as the lights came up. The size of the stage and audience magnified such elements of the set and turned them into living characters as well.

The play focuses on a revelation of the secrets of Chance Wayne’s (Scott Adams) past, and its progression moves smoothly as the roots of the corruption of his sweetheart, Heavenly Finley (Cassandra Meyer) and himself are unearthed. The somewhat tedious set changes swivel in and out of the wings to go back and forth from Chance’s past to his present. Chance’s past resides on the back porch of Heavenly’s house and the St. Cloud Bar, and Chance’s present lies in the hotel bed with Princess Kosmonopolis (Gillian Mackay-Smith).

The importance of each of the characters is stressed as they are introduced in the play. Fiona Mallek and Leah Canali take the stage as Aunt Nonie and Miss Lucy. They portray the few life lines that Chance has yet to sever. Heavenly’s father and brother, Boss Finely (Thomas Keating) and Tom Junior (Sean Hopkins) act as packages of anger, hate, ignorance and revenge. They remain Chance’s eternal obstacles and Heavenly’s chains and restraints. All of the characters come together to create a tapestry of love and hate, racism and tolerance, success and failure, youth and age.

Each actor seemed to find their own personal importance in their character and brought it to the production to create an extremely believable world where the purity of the heart has died and skeletons adorn every closet.

Heavenly, who plays the fallen angel, symbolizes the blindness of love and animate youth, which can be stolen in a second. The Princess, the only character the play truly spares, encourages the audience to remember that youth is a bird that flies from the heart, and Chance pleads with the audience to understand the potential to fail that resides in the worst versions of ourselves.

Director Del Lewis created an excellent awareness on stage and the NU Theatre department should be applauded for their aesthetically terrific reminder that no one can defeat time and the “Sweet Bird of Youth” can be kept alive only in the heart.