Climate change, natural disasters, cataclysmic war, and a leading lady who steps out of character to inform the audience that she doesn’t understand a word of the play in which she’s appearing. What must 1942 theatergoers have made of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin Of Our Teeth?

Check out Theatricum Botanicum’s zesty 2019 revival and savor for yourself this Greek Mythology-meets-The Bible-meets-Ancient History-inspired 20th-century classic, as charming as it is mind-blowing and as terrifically directed and performed as any Wilder fan could wish for.

Characters may have broken the fourth wall as far back as Shakespeare, if not before, but I’m guessing none had ever declared point blank, “I hate this play and every word in it!”

That’s precisely what Antrobus family maid Sabina (Willow Geer) does only minutes after lights up, and if audiences have yet to decide whether they agree or not, an Announcer (Jonathan Blandino) has already informed us that unprecedented August weather has brought a wall of ice south to Tippehatchee, the small Vermont town that George Antrobus (Mark Lewis), inventor of the wheel, and his apron-inventing wife Maggie (Melora Marshall) call home, cuing us in from the get-go that this will be a far cry from the straightforward theatrical fare that preceded its early-WWII debut.

Add to that a teenage son (William Holbrook as Henry) originally named Cain, Henry’s frisky younger sister Gladys (Gabrielle Beauvais), and a couple of prehistoric family pets (John Brahan as Dinosaur Dolly and Sky Wahl as the wooliest of mammoths, fanciful “creature creation” by Puppet Time) and you’ve got a family of Vermonters as atypical as they are all-American.

And just wait until Act Two takes the Antrobus clan to Atlantic City where end-of-the-world flood warnings have been issued, and Act Three has mother and daughter awaiting George and Henry’s return from combat abroad.

With the United States less than a year into a World War II, The Skin Of Our Teeth’s message of hope in the face of calamity must have resonated with particular force back in 1942, though few could have imagined how much more relevant its themes would be in 2019 America.

Still, regardless of its serious undertones, The Skin Of Our Teeth is a comedy, as whimsical as it is a precursor of 1950s absurdist theater, and under Ellen Geer’s expert direction, a cast of twenty deliver the comedic goods every step of the way.

Ellen’s daughter Willow captivates as the sauciest and sassiest of servants (her French maid’s uniform is just one of costume designer Holly Hawk’s many gems) as well as when playing a perplexed “Miss Somerset” or finding herself competing for Miss Atlantic City against comely ensemble players Margaret Kelly, Woan Ni Wooi, and Julia Stier or returning from battle in fierce warrior mode.

Lewis and Marshall are multifaceted wonders as the Antrobuses, each getting a standout dramatic scene to match the Mister and Missus’s more lighter-hearted moments.

Holbrook does breakout work as a young man as complicated and conflicted as he is, at least on the surface, a teenage dreamboat.

Beauvais’s precocious Gladys, Earnestine Phillips’ force-of-nature Fortune Teller, and Jonathan Blandino’s silver-throated Announcer/Broadcast Official (his “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody” recalls Bert Park’s iconic “There She Is”) are terrific too as are ensemble members Dylan Booth, Brahan, Matthew Domenico, Colin Guthrie, Kelly, Shane McDermott (a perky Telegram Boy), Shubhit Noor, Matthew Pardue, Dante Ryan, Gina Shansey, Wahl, and Wooi, with special snaps to guitar-and-ukulele-strumming quartet Brahan, Guthrie, Pardue, and Wahl.

Danté Carr and Sydney Russell provide oodles of period props, Zachary Moore lights the Antrobus digs and Atlantic City quite strikingly, and Grant Escadrón supplies atmospheric sound design effects along the way.

William Dennis Hunt is assistant director and Pardue is assistant director apprentice. Kim Cameron is stage manager and Russell is assistant stage manager.

Had Theatricum Botanicum staged its third The Skin Of Our Teeth only a few years back, it wouldn’t have had nearly today’s contemporary relevance. In 2019, it’s a potent reminder not just that the more things may seem for a time to be changing, the more they stay the same, but also that great plays remain great no matter their age.

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
August 4, 2019
Photos: Ian Flanders

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Theatricum Botanicum, Thornton Wilder