Faith in Dark Times

Bristol Riverside Theatre stages Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winner ‘The Skin of Our Teeth.’

By: Amy Brummer

PHOTO COURTESY BRISTOL RIVERSIDE THEATRE

Karen Lynn Gorney stars in Thornton Wilder’s surreal play The Skin of Our Teeth, the latest offering at Bristol Riverside Theatre.

   A dinosaur and mammoth are warming themselves by the fire. An ice wall is moving down from the north, and it is so cold people’s feet are sticking to the ground.
   The Antrobus family in Excelsior has just received a telegram from Father, who is late getting home from work, telling of his newest invention — the wheel. On this frigid August day, they wait patiently for him to return, unsure of how to cope with the impending ice age.
   In Thornton Wilder’s 1942 play, The Skin of Our Teeth, the Antrobus family is put to great tests as they forge their way through a series of natural disasters that plague them at every turn. It runs Jan. 27 to Feb. 15 at Bristol Riverside Theatre.
   Married for more than 5,000 years, Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus forge their way through these challenges, gaining and losing ground in each act. Recovering from a recent blight of locusts, the family faces starvation and certain death as their fuel sources run out, but Dad is still testing the children on their multiplication tables.
   The play romps through the absurdity of existence with charged intensity, and was a cutting-edge piece for its time. According to the Thornton Wilder Society’s Web page, legend has it that people were running for the exits at intermission during its premiere at the Schubert Theatre in New Haven, Conn., on Oct. 15, 1942. But the play endured the criticism of its detractors and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1943.
   Wilder’s use of nonlinear time and direct address to the audience provides a sense of inaccessibility and inclusion all at once. Written during World War II, The Skin of Our Teeth captures the irrationality of a world in turmoil, probing the values that keep people from losing faith in dark times. To illustrate this, the characters embody different approaches to conflict, allowing them to rub against each other, creating static and friction.
   Mr. Antrobus, an inventor credited with the great achievements of humankind such as the alphabet, represents the achievements of progress, yet he struggles to harness his emotions and desires.
   Played by Anthony Cummings, whose past credits include the Broadway shows Waiting in the Wings and A Little Family Business as well as BRT productions of Sunrise at Campobello and Arsenic and Old Lace, Mr. Antrobus can be arrogant, consumed by lust and vengeful. But with the flair of Homer Simpson, he tempers it with humor and, ultimately, compassion.
   "He is everything wrong with the male gender," Mr. Cummings says. "On the flip side, he is the indomitable spirit of humanity, even though he loses faith, but anybody would if there is Armageddon in every act. He is an incredible optimist most of the time, and he is so devoted to the lifelong concept of learning that he becomes heroic."
   His wife, Mrs. Antrobus, played by Karen Lynn Gorney, shares his optimism, yet acts as a beacon of practicality and control. Ms. Gorney is a veteran actress of daytime TV who continues to reprise her role as Tara Martin in All My Children and is well known for her part as John Travolta’s dance partner in Saturday Night Fever.
   In The Skin of Our Teeth, she struggles to raise two children against the backdrop of these trials and tribulations. Her son, Henry, whose name has been changed from Cain, is emotionally disturbed and violent, with a penchant for throwing stones that have felled more than one human target.
   After the deep freeze of Act I, she faces a grand flood and her husband’s potential infidelity. By Act III, she is barely managing to survive with her daughter, Grace, who has just had a child. The action takes place against the backdrop of a war, started by Henry, that has raged for years.
   Through it all, she keeps her chin up, jaw squared, and her focus forward.
   "The survivor part of her is triumphing over her frailties," Ms. Gorney says. "It is not that she doesn’t have frailties, but she suppresses them and keeps a lid on her emotions."
   The role of doubt and uncertainty belongs to Sabina, the maid, who evolves from an anxious pessimist in Act I to a seductive temptress in Act II, and ends up a world-weary survivor by Act III. Played by Barbara McCulloh, whose stage credits include the role of Anna in the most recent Broadway production of The King and I and Mrs. Darling/Wendy in Peter Pan, the role of Sabina has a lot of room for interpretation. The character moves between her role as the maid and an actress playing the maid, who intervenes when the stakes become too intense.
   Throughout the play, she is a foil to the Antrobus’ stoic determination, questioning their resolve but pulling back when she gets too close to destroying it.
   By the end of the play, she repeats the lines she started with, "Oh, oh, oh, six o’clock and the master not home yet. Pray to God nothing has happened to him crossing the Hudson River. But I wouldn’t be surprised. The whole house is at sixes and sevens and why the house hasn’t fallen down around our ears long ago is a miracle to me."
   Ms. McCulloh says that by this point, the character is not the same woman who started the play with those same words. She has grown over the course of the evening and faces the challenges again, armed with a new sense of awareness from her experiences.
   What Wilder gets across is that the cycle of life churns on without regard for the irrationality of human actions. People must choose between evolution or decay.
   "He really gives a sense of the insanity in the world," Ms. Gorney says, "the psychic reality of this earth. It is a very positive message about the nature of this planet, where anything worth having needs to be fought for and we are constantly living on the razor’s edge. We were born to this planet, and this is the lesson we have to learn."
The Skin of Our Teeth, directed by Edward Keith Baker, plays at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, Pa., Jan. 27-Feb. 15. Performances: Wed. 2, 8 p.m., Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 3, 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $27-$39. For information, call (215) 785-0100. On the Web: www.brtstage.org