Synopses & Reviews
Instructor s Guide Note To Teachers
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey in 1928 and Pulitzer Prizes in drama for "Our Town (1939) and "The Skin of Our Teeth (1943), the only writer to have won the award in both fiction and drama. Financially secure from his royalties, aged 45 and with poor vision that guaranteed he would never be drafted, in 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and shortly before the premiere of "The Skin of Our Teeth, Wilder nevertheless actively sought and received a commission in the Army as a captain. Perhaps because he was fluent in German, Italian, French, and Spanish, he was assigned to the Army Air Corps (the Air Force was not yet a separate service) where he worked in Intelligence and War Plans. After service in Algeria and Italy, he finished the war as a lieutenant colonel. Wilder s conviction that he needed to defend the United States shaped both his decision to join the military and his play.
When "The Skin of Our Teeth premiered at the Plymouth Theater in New York on November 18, 1942, Americans had spent more than a decade with the fear that American democracy was doomed to failure. The Great Depression of the 1930s seemed to indicate to intellectuals and industrial workers that capitalism was fated to implode from its internal contradictions. World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The United States entered the war after the Japanese navy destroyed most of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. On opening night of the play, Germany controlled most of Europe confronted only by British and Russian airmen and soldiers who werehanging on grimly against what seemed unbeatable German forces. America had been driven from the Phillippines by Japanese troops, which controlled much of Asia. To many in the audience, a long, totalitarian dark age must have seemed a distinct possibility.
On a less serious level, theater goers in New York knew the production itself had been plagued by epic internal battles, largely because of the flamboyant temperament of the star cast as Sabina, the tempestuous Tallulah Bankhead, whom the inexperienced producer and director, Michael Meyerberg and Elia Kazan respectively, had difficulty controlling (Kazan would go on to become one of the great theater and film directors of the 20th century). And even though the play was a success, running for 359 performances, Wilder s own reputation was seriously damaged by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson s entirely unjust accusation that the Wilder had plagiarized James Joyce s difficult novel "Finnegans Wake. Campbell and Robinson s article was believed by some because Wilder declined to defend himself, very few reporters then or now were likely to read the enormously complicated "Wake, and the play does borrow some of its ideas from Joyce. Although the distinguished critic Edmund Wilson refuted the charge by pointing out that playwrights have always borrowed from previous writers, and differences of tone and characterization between the two works are great, for a long time the unfair aspersion lingered in memory--Robinson repeated it in 1957 in connection with another Wilder success, "The Matchmaker, which eventually was turned into the musical "Hello Dolly.
Yet despite the contentiousness of the play shistorical context, political, theatrical, and literary, "The Skin of Our Teeth is a tragi-comedy where the comedy is so broad it borders on farce. Wilder himself claimed that he got the idea for it when a rubber chicken flew off the stage and landed in his lap at a production of "Hellzapoppin, the hit 1938 vaudeville review written by Ole Olsen and Chick Johnson. The farcical element makes it possible for an audience to contemplate the most painful and difficult ideas by placing them in an absurd frame. Henry/Cain has killed his brother, but in a world of singing telegraph boys, where a maid is asked if she has milked the mammoth, fratricide is distanced enough so that the audience can respond with curiosity to the idea the Cain and Abel is the story of two ordinary suburban boys who had a fight with tragic results. Horror becomes sufficiently endurable that the audience can accept it and move on, just as humanity has had to accept certain horrors and move on.
Structurally the play rejects the convention of the fourth wall common on the American stage. In realistic plays and melodramas, the audience sees a slice of life where characters speak in relatively ordinary language on a realistic set. In Wilder s view, this was soothing; the audience was not involved with the play s action and were transformed into mere spectators, not the actively engaged community the times demanded. New ( or rather, recovered ) dramatic forms were necessary to represent the painful new experiences of the twentieth century while at the same time affirming the fundamental continuity of human experience and the consequent hope that since we had survived before we wouldagain.
"The Skin of Our Teeth presents alternately seriously and comically that mankind has always been on the edge of catastrophe, and, worse, probably always will be, because of natural disasters and the human race s inability to learn from its past mistakes. Thus human history is not linear, a steady advance of progress, but cyclical, with development, catastrophe, and the necessity to rebuild. But the great books, representing the best of what humanity has thought, provide the foundation for the newest attempt to build a just and happy community. The ideas of the philosophers and prophets are the enduring part of culture and supply the knowledge and hope that enables people to go on and try again.
Near the end of Act III of "The Skin of Our Teeth, Mr. Antrobus says, Oh, I ve never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle. I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor edge of danger and must be fought for--whether it s a field, or a home, or a country. Just as the theater staff--the leading man s dresser, the star s maid, the head usher, the wardrobe mistress--in the theatrical tradition must take up unaccustomed roles because the show must go on, the audience is called on to take on heroic roles and Save the human race. Of course in World War II many men and women, including Thornton Wilder, left their homes and ordinary lives to do exactly that.
Questions For Class Discussion The Antrobuses live in contemporary New Jersey, which is threatened by an ice age. Adam and Eve (who are also the Antrobuses) have lost a ring in the theater the previous night. What doesthat indicate about time in the play? What does Wilder think about human nature? Have people changed over the ages?
Excelsior is the motto of the State of New York and the title of a poem by the 19th-century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about a youth who climbs a mountain to heaven. Why does Wilder choose this name for a typical American city?
Sabina says that if you want to know about Mrs. Antrobus, just go and look at a tigress, and look hard. What does she mean by this? Are human beings indistinguishable from animals? Is the similarity between humans and animals important? Where does the difference between animals and people lie?
There is no equivalent of Gladys in the book of Genesis. What is her function in the play? What does she represent?
Sabina breaks cha
Synopsis
In November 1942, The Skin of Our Teeth opened on Broadway to great controversy; it was directed by Elia Kazan and starred such fabled actors as Tallulah Bankhead, Frederic March, and Montgomery Clift. Despite the initial debate, the play was later awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
The Antrobus family and their maid Sabina continue to delight audiences as they conquer ever mounting global catastrophes from their humble home in Excelsior, New Jersey. Through revival after revival in this country and around the world, Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, a madcap comedy with hard edges, has become a timeless statement about human endurance and hope -- and the imperishable vitality of theater.
Synopsis
A timeless statement about human foibles . . . and human endurance, this edition of The Skin of Our Teeth features Thornton Wilder's unpublished production notes, diary entries, and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.
Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way ); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war--by the skin of their teeth.
Synopsis
A timeless statement about human foibles...and human endurance, The Skin of Our Teeth is Thornton Wilder's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, now reissued with a beautiful new cover and updated afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder.
Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.
Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way ); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war--by the skin of their teeth.
Witty, clever, and provocative, The Skin of Our Teeth showcases Wilder's storytelling genius and his extraordinary talents at delving deep into the human psyche.
Synopsis
A timeless statement about human foibles...and human endurance, The Skin of Our Teeth is Thornton Wilder's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, with an afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder.
Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains, as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.
Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way ); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war--by the skin of their teeth.
Witty, clever, and provocative, The Skin of Our Teeth showcases Wilder's storytelling genius and his extraordinary talents at delving deep into the human psyche.
Synopsis
A timeless statement about human foibles . . . and human endurance, this beautiful new edition features Wilder's unpublished production notes, diary entries, and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.
Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way!); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war -- by the skin of their teeth.
About the Author
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly!. He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, the opera, and films. (His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of Doubt [1943] remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day.) Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.