Excelsior: Thorny Thornton Wilder’s Wild Romp
THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH: Theater Review
A Noise Within’s production of three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is a surreal excursion into five millennia of world history as filtered through a Theatre of the Absurd type lens sprinkled with a screwball comedy sensibility, laden with Biblical and ancient Roman motifs and metaphors. (To fully comprehend all of this play’s symbolic allusions, theatergoers are advised to bring a King James version of the Holy Book plus a volume of Bulfinch’s Mythology to the ANW playhouse.)
Skin is set in the Excelsior, New Jersey household of the Antrobus (Greek for “human” or “person”) family: George (Frederick Stuart, who resembles Ernest Hemingway during the 1930s), his wife Maggie (Trisha Miller), their daughter Gladys (Mildred Marie Langford) and son Henry (Christian Henley). (The children are played by Black thesps, while the parents by Caucasians, a fact that’s never mentioned in this production.) Ann Noble portrays Sabina (which references to the Rape of the Sabines in an ancient Roman myth), who not only dusts the suburban home as the Antrobus’ maid—and often threatens to tender her “two-week notice"—but l later becomes a seductive beauty queen. George is a great inventor of innovations such as the wheel, and he—supposedly like many geniuses—has a mercurial temperament.
Frederick Stuart, Mildred Marie Langford (left). Micah Schneider, Ann Noble, Veronica McFarlane (right)
The story seems to follow the Antrobuses and Sabina back and forth in time, through the tumult of the ages. Although it’s August, in Act I another Ice Age is causing freezing weather (audiences today have to contend with a phenomenon on the opposite end of the climate change spectrum). There are dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures (Garry Lennon has been the costume designer for many ANW productions, including Frankenstein, while Kelsey Kato is the woolly mammoth puppet fabricator), as well as philosophers such as Spinoza who make special guest appearances. A fortune teller makes the scene, portrayed by an appropriately named actress, Cassandra (I kid thee not!) Marie Murphy, an ANW resident artist.
The first act takes place in Excelsior, while the second act moves from Atlantic City to the end of a devastating war back on the home front in Excelsior. The Boardwalk scenes at Atlantic City deal with themes of marriage, lust and infidelity. Wilder’s play was originally three acts but in this ANW revival, the second and third acts have been compressed into Act II. So, as presented, this production is a bit lopsided as the length of the acts before and after the intermission significantly vary, although this is a minor point.
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Wilder’s play premiered on Broadway in November 1942, directed by pre-snitch Elia Kazan, starring Tallulah Bankhead and Fredric March, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Less than a year after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, which devastated much of the US Pacific fleet, at that point the second world war was not going particularly well for the USA and our Allies, who were still on the defensive then. Part of Wilder’s intent seemed to be to reassure wartime audiences as America was engulfed by the global conflagration of WWII and the epic struggle against fascism, although Skin wasn’t exactly what I’d call a “morale booster” per se.
Masters of mise-en-scène, co-directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, ANW’s redoubtable Producing Artistic Directors (and leading lights of LA theater), admirably helm this sprawling—in terms of both time and space—production, bringing all the elements together into a cohesive whole. Projection designer Nicholas Santiago, scenic designer Frederica Nascimento and lighting designer Ken Booth join forces to creatively render the unreal realms conjured up from Wilder’s script with an otherworldly verve. Together they have concocted one of the stage’s more portentous storms. One could almost argue that in this ambitious production, the scrim is part of the dramatis personae.
Black and white faux unreal newsreels also set the stage (literally) for Wilder’s wacky take on our often troubling, bewildering, baffling world, as he tries to lead the audience to making some sort of a semblance of sense out of the chaos of it all. To further bedevil the spectator, Wilder has tossed into his mystifying concoction a self-reflexive vibe, with a stage manager (played by Kasey Mahaffy) intruding onto the onstage action.
If Wilder wrought Skin during the dog days of WWII, 2024 ticket buyers should easily relate to thematic aspects of the plot. Today, the play’s storm and Ice Age call to mind our climate emergency. Given the ongoing tragedies in Gaza and Ukraine, it’s not too much of a stretch for contemporary audiences to empathize with the Antrobuses emerging from a cataclysmic conflict, including indications of PTSD.
The standout in this rather large cast is Ann Noble, who imbues her Sabina with a quirky, perky manic-ness, as she alternates between housekeeper and temptress, flawlessly roaming the range of human emotions, and always doing so with a jaunty, droll panache. Let’s hope Ms. Noble never ignobly gives the stage her “two-week notice,” so we’ll have the sheer delight of seeing her perform hi-jinks on the boards for years and plays to come.
As much as your humble and most obedient scribe enjoyed Wilder’s walk on the wild side and found it to be good fun, not every viewer will, shall we say, have Skin in the game. It seems that this show is for the more adventurous playgoer who prefers his/her theater to be playful and challenging, as opposed to having a conventional beginning, middle and “The End.” But those up for offbeat entertainment with an unpredictable kick in the Teeth are likely to find it in this ANW production that takes spectators down that theatrical road less traveled.
A Noise Within presents The Skin of Our Teeth on Thursdays (except September 12), Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with 2:00 p.m. matinees on Saturdays and Sundays, through September 29 at 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. (Note: Post-performance conversations with the artists will take place on Fridays and on Sunday, September 15.) For info and tickets: www.anoisewithin.org; (626)356-3100. Free parking is in an adjacent garage.
The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the Hollywood Progressive.
