Sweet Bird of Youth [Typescript]

1959. Loose sheets typed on versos only, letter size, 127 leaves. The typescript of the play used for publication of the first edition by New Directions. The sheets are accompanied by an envelope addressed to New Directions with a handwritten note from Edwin Erbe, former publicity director for the publisher. Near fine. Sweet Bird of Youth opened on Broadway in March 1959, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page, and it was a hit, but it was the last time Williams and Kazan would work together, and the last time Williams would have a major new play received without the qualification that he was in decline. It is a play about the terror of aging and the corruption of the young, set in a Gulf Coast hotel room where a gigolo and a fading movie star cling to each other as proof that time can be outrun, and it cannot.