Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth is 67 years old but it plays as if it had been written and workshopped last week by one of those Austin indie arts groups of which we are so proud.
It's wild stuff --a history of humankind as embodied by the Antrobus family, with a mad mix-up of times, epic figures, surreal settings and primal myths. Refract that story through the lens of a dramatic structure that the author and actors keep yanking out from under you, dress it up with Lowell Bartholomee's videos, and live with the fact that you never know what's going to happen next.
Wilder wasn't shy about announcing the epic proportions of this tragicomedy. The family's last name is "Antrobus" -- a label that shouts "human being" or "humankind," derived from the Greek άνθρωπος ("anthropos" -- as in, for example, "anthropology").
Your first act is located in an apparently modern New Jersey, except that it's not modern -- the Ice Age is encroaching.
Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
I've always taken Antrobus to be a portmanteau of Anthopos and omnibus...
ReplyDeleteregardless... a much loved play and glad to hear that it's a must see as well.