Breaking Character: During the first months of 2017, I was directing a production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, New York. While we were in rehearsal, a beauty pageant judge was inaugurated President; an executive order limiting the entrance of refugees was signed; and it was reported that an iceberg larger than the state of Rhode Island would soon break off of the Antarctic shelf. It was eerie. The play felt as if it had been written only weeks earlier. It seemed to be asking urgent questions about the fate of humanity in this unique moment.
3 comments:
After studying The Skin Of Our Teeth last year for a group project I feel this article provides a great reflection on to Wilder's play. I remember at the time that my group project was happening, all of these changes in our world hadn't happened yet. To us it was more of a warning on whats to come. I agree with the author of this article in that this play comes alive in the conditions of a crisis. thinking back to what I know about the play and what the article includes, it amazes me just how similar the circumstances are. It is interesting to think about how the end of the play is depicted. I don't know weather it should be seen as a warning or not. Overall I think that this play would be a great choice for any theater trying to get their foot in the door of political theater. Like the author said many people discount the plot of the play because of how absurd it can seem but its core message is still very relevant.
Wilder truly has a magical kind of foresight all his own. Indeed, when Tony McKay was looking at Wilder's The Matchmaker as a potential play for this year's season, he has said that he was drawn to its modern relevance, and how Wilder wrote on themes that have somehow transcended his own time by decades. In Matchmaker it was themes of money and greed, and male perceptions of women that suddenly rang with chilling clarity against the social and political backdrop of our current president. In The Skin of Our Teeth, it seems as though Wilder has captured the questions and value and perceptions that exist in a world on the verge of true crisis. Many dismiss Wilder as a mono dimensional playwright, and it is these people who miss the nuanced themes and keen socio-political awareness with which Wilder writes. Indeed, a resurgence in performances of Wilder's plays might just be the thing our times need.
Thornton Wilder has one of the most engaging processes of any playwright I've seen. He doesn't explain relevance to the modern world by liberalizing it, but rather he tells these tales through rather smaller micro-aggressions where he is able to capture the American experience in smaller doses and portray it on stage. His demonstration of an inner crisis is portrayed in its entirety as a staple of what his plays are going to be. He is an expert is the development of characters and a genius in the development of the atmosphere and social conscious of a play. Those parts of his artistry are seen in his works like Skin of Our Teeth where he alludes to the ice age and also the great war, both natural and man-made disasters. Thornton Wilder is a journalist of the human condition, its capacity for evil, its pitfalls, and its triumphs.
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