Review of Remy Bumppo Theatre Company's The Skin of Our Teeth

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Skin of Our Teeth. It was by Thornton Wilder and it was directed by Krissy Vanderwarker. And it was about the Antrobus family--the father, George (Kareem Bandealy), the mother, Maggie (Linda Gillum), and their two children Gladys (Kayla Raelle Holder when I saw it, usually Leea Ayers) and Henry (Matt Farabee)--and their lives throughout history...or the 1940s; it is kind of hard to tell with this play. You know all those things you remember about the Forties: the Andrews Sisters, Rosie the Riveter...and Dinosaurs? The thing is, in this play, they talk about the Depression, but there is a dinosaur (Kristen Magee) and a Mammoth (Annie Prichard) who live like pets inside the Antrobus house. There is Noah's Ark, but also an election. The Antrobuses are a classic American family, but also probably Adam and Eve and Cain and...Gladys. You remember that famous Bible story about Gladys. Their housemaid Sabina (Kelly O'Sullivan) is the narrator and she is like part of the family, even though she was abducted (like the Sabine women in Roman mythology) and she keeps trying to make Mr. Antrobus fall in love with her. It is about family, corruption, and resilience. I think this is a really weird but fun show. It is so crazy that it was written so long ago and before feminism was as prominent as is is now. It was not at all what I was expecting, but I loved it.

I just finished performing in Our Town, also by Thornton Wilder, and it is a very different kind of show. Both shows have a similar message, but they go about showing the message in different ways. Our Town is about a small town and how two people fall in love, and about three stages of their relationship. Wilder is trying to talk about life and death, but he is using a small thing to do it. In The Skin of Our Teeth, everything that happens is a statement about humanity and how we relate to each other, but he is using the entire world, the apocalypse, and a World War to say it. There is a family, but it is part of a broader scape of things and a lot of things that they do don't just affect them, they can affect the entire world. The portrayals of men and women and their relationships are very different from each other in these shows. In Our Town everything is a lot more wholesome and the drama in the relationships comes from natural things like death and misunderstandings and mild "faults in character." In Our Town he seems to be on the women's side because he has a speech about how hard it is for the mothers and how they cook all the time and they never get enough thanks for it and they never have a nervous breakdown--which is one of my favorite lines in the show. In Our Town all the men are well-meaning, but in The Skin of Our Teeth they are most of the time violent and lustful. The men are good at what they do: George is good at inventing and Henry is good at killing people with his slingshot. But that doesn't make them good people. The women are portrayed as people who are really hardworking, but no one takes them seriously or appreciates them. There is a bottle that Maggie throws into the water right after Mr. Antrobus has said that he is leaving her for Sabina. And she says that in the bottle is everything a woman knows and that women aren't what you see in advertisements or in the movies. And I think those are very powerful lines because it is true and it is great they were written so long ago, but also sad that they haven't fixed those problems yet. In The Skin of Our Teeth, instead of having everyday terrible occurrences be the thing that is wrong, it is larger things like infidelity or war or the Ice Age or the apocalypse. The characters show you how much humanity has worked to get to where we are right now, but also how humans take advantage of people, betray, kill, and rape people. It shows you how the people who make humanity successful are not always the best people. Like Our Town, it is saying a true message about life that makes you really think about bigger problems that aren't just centered around you. Both plays show you how life is unfair, but you have to keep going and you might find good things again if you continue.

I really liked the scripted moments where the actors would break character. The actors were playing actors playing roles, which really engaged me even more in the story because you got to see the relationships between the actor-characters. One time Henry was beating up his dad, George, and Sabina runs in and says to stop the show because he is actually hurting him. It was surprising because they have interrupted the show before but not in the same way when someone in the show was being hurt. It shows you how wrapped up in performance some actors can get and actually believe they are in the role. So the person that Matt Farabee was playing who was playing Henry thought that he was in danger because his character was. Sabina would break character a lot to stop the show for anything from anyone getting hurt to her friend being there tonight and she didn't want the scene to offend her. She also likes to trash talk the play. It is so funny to see her be such a terrible person to be on stage with because she is making the whole play about herself and not taking her scene partner's actions and feelings into account. The actor-character who plays Sabina didn't really serve the play very well because all she could think about is herself, which is a lot like her character. That made me see why the actor-character got the part. And Kelly O'Sullivan did a really good job differentiating the actor-character from Sabina but still showing the similarities. Another funny interruption is when most of the actors get food poisoning and have other people go on for them, but it isn't understudies it is a stagehand (Magee), a dresser (Diego Colón), an assistant (Alice Wu), and the house manager (Art Fox). I thought it was funny how each replacement performer was played by an ensemble member (who supposedly had food poisoning). You weren't expecting any of them to be very good, but it was a nice surprise and pretty funny when they revealed that they were. These kind of moments where the play is interrupted are effective because even though you don't think it is actually happening--you know they are still on script--it makes you think about what is real and what is fake. This show really plays with your mind that way. When you go to the theater everything that is happening you are pretty sure is just acting, but you still decide to tell yourself to be invested in certain characters because they are replicating people.

People who would like this show are people who like wacky but philosophical shows, breaking character, and indoor dinosaurs. I think that people should definitely definitely go see this show. I think it is such an intriguing, beautiful, and funny show. It is all about the circle of life and how new worlds keep getting created out of disasters. And I think it is really fun to watch.

Photos: Nomee Photography