The Skin of Our Teeth
Backstage Theatre

Jeff Recommended

"Thornton Wilder’s other Pulitzer-winning play has not aged terribly well. It’s not hard to see why audiences at the height of World War II would have responded enthusiastically to this flashy tale of the nuclear family muddling through various end-of-the-world scenarios.


2/20/06 - 4/3/06

Thurs-Sat 8p, Sun 4p


"Thornton Wilder’s other Pulitzer-winning play has not aged terribly well. It’s not hard to see why audiences at the height of World War II would have responded enthusiastically to this flashy tale of the nuclear family muddling through various end-of-the-world scenarios. At the time, Wilder’s all-out assault on the fourth wall made the innovations of theatrical modernists like Pirandello safe for Broadway consumption. Nowadays, though, with even Fox’s prime-time lineup co-opting such metatheatrical high jinks, th ecreaky girders of Wider’s cosmic comedy come to the fore. Skin’s suburbanites’ thrust into the mythic past seems like a page torn from The New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” column (“Your father’s at the office, trying to invent the alphabet”?). And suffice it to say that the plight of Man caught between Vampish Seducer and Virtuous Homemaker no longer packs the punch it once did, at least outside of South Dakota. BackStage’s playful production emphasizes the parts of the play that remain alive. It’s perhaps best at capturing the periodic flirtations with absolute meltdown, as Seth Zurer’s stage manager tries to coax Ward-Hays into continuing her performance as Sabina, or barring that, to step in himself. The company makes excellent use of Chopin’s downstairs space; the lobby becomes an integral part of the proceedings, featuring singing muses and rousing addresses. While Ward-Hays never seizes the stage with the full authority that her central role requires, Paca’s George Antrobus radiates a befuddled largeness of spirit, while Riemers long suffering and dignified Maggie anchors the play’s message of hope" - John Beer, TimeOut Chicago 3/16/06

"Backstage Theatre Company’s ingenious, exuberant revival of Thornton Wilder’s 1942 saga is a tonic and a triumph. Because the story spans a period from the dawn of time through WWII, the stage must be transformed into a New Jersey bungalow beset by a wall of ice, a 1929 Atlantic City beauty pageant that succumbs to Noah’s flood, and a painfully contemporary war scene. Over nearly three hours, director Brandon Bruce’s 16-member cast seldom strikes a false note or misses Wilder’s trenchant wisdom, treating period ballads, clever sight gags, and deft caricatures wit inexhaustible high spirits. As Sabina, the predatory maid-narrator who deeply distrutst the play, Rebekah Ward-Hays exemplifies Wilder’s cunning, constantly surprising us" - Lawrence Bommer, Chicago Reader 3/10/06

"There’s a reason why you don’t see The Skin of Our Teeth very often. Thornton Wilder wrote Skin on the fulcrum of the 20th century, the Depression recovery years just before World War II. Heavily influenced by sources as varied as Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and the vaudeville review Hellzapoppin’, Wilder set upon what he called “the most ambitious project I have ever approached” to write the unabridged story of mankind’s struggle against impossible odds and extinction. Wilder’s Antrobus clan is simultaneously the model American family, the progenitors of the human race and (Wilder will not let us forget) actors playing roles. Instead of garden-variety strife, though, Wilder sets them against the great calamities of history: an Ice Age, the Flood and war. “It’s a challenging play,” admits BackStage Theatre Company artistic director Brandon Bruce, who’s taken on the task of directing the seldom-produced Skin for a run in the Chopin Studio’s challenging basement space. “If you don’t give it your all” and commit fully to the bizarre reality of the play, he says, “the engine will falter.” For Bruce and designer Deanna Zibello, tackling this monumental work meant carving it up into smaller monumental works. “From the beginning, we’ve really been thinking of it as three plays,” Zibello says. And this is no Stanislavsky-style, “breaking down the play” exercise: Each of the play’s three acts will have different aesthetics—a Capra-esque New Jersey household in 1942, the Atlantic City Boardwalk in 1929 and what Bruce describes as a period “out of time” representing “all American wars.” Moreover, Zibello’s design has called for the Chopin’s risers to be mobile, facilitating a complete seating reconfiguration between the acts. “It’s really three different theaters,” Zibello says. “Wilder was very specific with what he wanted [the production to look like]. We’re trying to honor that.” But here’s where BackStage’s grand vision butts against reality: Wilder wrote his tech-heavy burlesque of human history after Our Town had already made him a rising star. He had the benefit of knowing that Broadway-level resources would be at his disposal; Bruce and Zibello’s production will be staged in what amounts to someone’s large basement. Their air castles must be built on the cold, hard ground. “The poured concrete floor is an issue, because it’s difficult to attach anything to it,” Zibello concedes, and Skin’s sets must be light enough to move. Moving scenery around is another issue: The Chopin Studio’s floor and ceiling are uneven, sloping downward as you move upstage—sets built for one area may not fit in another when it’s time to store them. “We really want to use the whole length of the space for Act 2 [the Atlantic City Boardwalk],” Zibello says. “But then all of the scenery for Act 1 and 3 has to go away.” And all of this comes on top of the perennial issue of the concrete support columns that carve up potential playing area. Surprisingly, the innovative BackStage (of last summer’s Denise Druczweski’s Inferno) has found ways to use aspects of the eccentric venue to its advantage. A major set piece of the original production comes in the final act, when the Antrobus home, destroyed by war, magically reconstructs itself. Determined not to skimp, the production team discovered its concrete environs made it easier to secure the complex system of ropes and pulleys needed to pull off the trick. “We’re even using the columns,” Zibello says. And the idiosyncratic “slide away” panel at the entrance to the performance space inspired Bruce to move some of the action into the lobby. As with any such production, there will no doubt be a spate of unforeseen challenges as the production moves from its rehearsal space to its final destination, and the long-plotted mechanical contrivances begin to take shape. Although he says he’s aware of the potential problems, Bruce remains optimistic. In fact, he sees it as par for the course with Wilder’s epic odyssey. “This play is so big, it can’t contain itself,” Bruce says. “It’s ironic, because we’re literally putting this show up by the skin of our teeth" - Dan Granata, TimeOut Chicago 3/2/06

Author
Thornton Wilder

Director
Brandon Bruce

Performers
Edd Fairman, Steve Hickson, Elizabeth Hope Kohart, Ron Kuzava, Madeline Long, Peter Navis, Michael Pacas, Erick Paskey, Nicole Pellegrino, Melissa Riemer, Megan Frei, Sean Sullivan, Eva Swan, Rebekah Ward-Hays, Seth Zurer

Production
Megan Frei, Bethany Woodard, Allison Murray, Erik Santoro, Deanna Zibello, Sean Sullivan, Matthew Rother, Megan Tan, Vanessa King, Glenese Hand, Rachel Jamieson, Joanna Iwanicks, Elizabeth Hope Kohart, Eva Swan, Vallea Woodbury

Tags: Theater, American, 2006