Performing Arts Department
Past Perfrmances
2006 - 2007
The Skin of our Teeth
NOTES
" Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it, so it goes on flying anyway." - Mary Kay Ash
When the curtain for The Skin of Our Teeth first rose in the forties, audiences were a little puzzled. Theater-goers were accustomed to realistic narratives in familiar settings with characters living their lives in complete ignorance of the people watching them. Outside of the familiar settings (New Jersey), Thornton Wilder turned the conventions of drama upside down, the biggest one being time. Events occur simultaneously instead of sequentially, so you can have telegrams even if the wheel hasn't been invented. The fact that many of the changes you will see tonight don't seem as awkward are testament to the influence Wilder has had as dramatist over the years
The Skin of Our Teeth tells the story of the Antrobus family; an average family confronted with a wide variety of cataclysmic events - the ice age, the great flood, and war. Since the story starts in the middle, we know that these are not the only catastrophes they have had to endure, yet like the bumble bee mentioned above, they keep surviving mostly because they don't know any better . . . or is it because that's all they ever know?
I first read Wilder's play in my less-than-inspiring 11 th grade U.S. literature class. After O Pioneers and The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham , this play was a breath of fresh air. The language, though dated, still rang with sincerity and humor. More importantly, it demonstrated to a young man that the theater could be so much more than fancy story-telling.
This performance is the culmination of the Advanced and Intermediate Actors' year-long course. They were given the script in March, and in the span of 15 lessons have developed the characters, and blocking you see here tonight. It has been a pleasure watching these students tackle such a daunting task over the past weeks.
- D. Chapman
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