Review: Hope and Humor Spring Eternal in THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH at Artists Rep

If you've been wondering whether you should see THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH at Artists Rep, the answer is yes. Here's why.

First, THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH isn't staged often, so you don't know when you'll get another chance.

Second, this play, for which Thornton Wilder won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943, is unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's bizarre -- what you might call a "doozy." Dismiss any preconceived notions about what plays are like. This one throws all theatrical conventions out the window.

Act I is a mashup of the mid-20th century and the Ice Age. Here we meet George and Maggie Antrobus; their kids, Henry and Gladys; and the maid, Sabina, as they anticipate the impending arrival of a wall of ice at their door (no biggie -- they've dealt with volcanoes in the yard before). George Antrobus is a natural and successful leader -- the inventor of the alphabet, the multiplication tables, and the wheel, among other things -- working to see his family, and others from the community, safely through the ordeal. In Act II, a similar scene is replayed on the Atlantic City boardwalk (in this production, Act II takes place in the present day). This time, the impending disaster is the Great Flood, and George is being sworn in as the president of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Mammals, Subdivision Humans. Act III transports us again to a similar scene in the Antrobus's home in the aftermath of a devastating war.

Through its cyclicality, THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH explores the resiliency of humankind, our ability to pick up and start all over again after we -- or a natural disaster -- have made a serious muck of things. It's also very funny -- sometimes chuckle funny, sometimes snicker funny, often LOL funny. It's like Wilder is saying, "yes, it's the end of the world, but we're only doomed if we can't laugh about it."

Then there's the cast, which includes several Artists Rep resident artists and Portland favorites. Standouts for me were Don Alder as George Antrobus (charming, bumbling, so human), Linda Alper as Maggie Antrobus (valiantly bearing the burdens of all women on her shoulders), and Lauren Modica (telling the fortunes of the doomed). Also Megan Wilkerson's set, which seems about three times bigger than the actual theatre.

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH was completed mid-WWII, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it could just as easily have been written in this decade. A brief glance at the news is enough to suggest that we -- and a whole new set of natural disasters -- are currently making a serious muck of things. This play gives us hope that we can survive, rebuild, and thrive again.

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH runs through June 19. Get your tickets here.

Photo credit: Owen Carey

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