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| The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 11:48 am EDT 03/15/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 11:46 am EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I believe today's the first day it appeared, but don't hold me to that. About 20 dates. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: den 06:41 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - Delvino 11:46 am EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I’m an LCT member but I’m skipping this unless it gets un-skip-able reviews, mainly because the NYSF production I saw several years ago in the park, despite a capable cast, was one of the most painful theatrical experiences I’ve ever had, and certainly the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had at the Delacorte. I can see where the play may have been wonderful, innovative and provocative once, but, IMO, it just hasn’t endured, at least not based on the production I saw. | |
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| I too saw the NYSF of THE SKIN OF YOUR TEETCH" | |
| Posted by: NJGUY 11:18 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - den 06:41 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| 1998, I believe. Yes, painful to watch and very misdirected. I am going to give it a second shot with LCT. The play has a lot of meat on it and though heavily dated, maybe there will be some sparkle. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: Jackson 07:18 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - den 06:41 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I saw that production, too. Painful is the right word. J |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: huskyital (huskyital@yahoo.con) 01:42 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - Delvino 11:46 am EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| This is a very dated play so I think I will skip it. Perhaps if Tallulah Bankhead were alive she could bring it to life but this woke production I believe will not attract the masses. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: ryhog 02:59 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - huskyital 01:42 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I can't imagine a play that is less dated right now. "Woke" means "sensitive to social justice" so if your (euphemistic, obviously) appropriation of the term suggests you are not attracted to social justice then I guess you've said just about all that we need to hear. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: huskyital 03:57 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - ryhog 02:59 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| The play is dated but the cast is woke. I don’t think this will bring in the masses. Unfortunately Flying Over Sunset was a beautiful production but could not attract attendance for the LCT. Was their last successful production My Fair Lady? | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: mikem 04:47 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - huskyital 03:57 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Although My Fair Lady opened in 2018, the pandemic has meant that there have only been 2 shows in the Beaumont since then: The Great Society and Flying Over Sunset. LCT has also co-produced To Kill a Mockingbird, Pass Over, and The Sound Inside. That's a decent track record IMO. |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:30 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - mikem 04:47 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| And "Intimate Apparel" gives every indication of having been a successful run. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 04:01 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - huskyital 03:57 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| By woke, do you mean Black? | |
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| You can’t have it both ways. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 02:15 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 01:58 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - huskyital 01:42 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| In a mere two sentences your entire post blatantly contradicts itself; a production or play can’t be simultaneously “dated” and “woke”, since the two words are in diametric opposition to each other… so which is it? (I’m reminded of the quote from someone a few years back about how, for the most part, the people who use the word ‘woke’ are the very ones who don’t understand what it means.) (edit: I agree with Singapore below; I can’t speak to Theatre for a New Audience’s version, but the Quintessence Theatre in Philadelphia did a filmed version last year which was not only the best production I’ve ever seen of the play, but easily one of the 2 or 3 best pieces of theater filmed since the pandemic began. (Fully staged, this was, mind you, not some virtual conceit or Zoom reading.) |
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| re: You can’t have it both ways. | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 08:55 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: You can’t have it both ways. - ShowGoer 01:58 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Ok. Great. I love what prople are saying about this play. And, yes, the Delacorte production was very sit-com-y. The play may need to play actually dead-serious, and that’s how the laughs come. Now I’m excited. I don’t know the people they’ve cast, but we’ll see. |
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| re: You can’t have it both ways. | |
| Posted by: BillEadie 03:04 am EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: You can’t have it both ways. - lordofspeech 08:55 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
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| The Old Globe opened with it in their house that was rebuilt after an arsonist torched. Didn’t play like sharp satire, unfortunately, but the Globe relaunched successfully nevertheless. Bill, in San Diego, who didn’t live here then but saw it anyway |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: FinalPerformance 01:51 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth is on TDF. - huskyital 01:42 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I'm passing on this one too. Saw it years ago in Seattle and found it dated. Can't understand why Lincoln Center picked this one. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 02:00 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - FinalPerformance 01:51 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| The TFANA production showed that the play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: singleticket 02:45 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - Singapore/Fling 02:00 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Agreed, I thought the TFANA production directed by Arin Arbus was excellent. I don't remember it being that much of a modern take, just a thoughtful and spirited take on Wilder's play. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 02:54 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - singleticket 02:45 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
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| It was a modern take in the sense that it used the theatrical vocabulary of our time to tell its story. We’ll see what BJJ does, but the play doesn’t need to be associated all that much to be relevant… and that production was also cast with a mixed-race Antrobus family and didn’t cause a fuss from the “anti-Woke”. | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: schauspieler 11:37 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - Singapore/Fling 02:00 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| A comedy with refugee crises, extinction weather events and pointless wars - What's not to love? And I really enjoyed the TFANA production too. I liked the park production too, so sue me! | |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 09:39 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 09:36 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - schauspieler 11:37 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| "A comedy with refugee crises, extinction weather events and pointless wars - What's not to love?" Agreed, those elements are timeless, and ground the play in its humanistic universality. As does Wilder's fun with theater, an aspect that still works remarkably well. He sends up the pretentiousness baked into art's creation and reception, and what hasn't dated at all is the breaking of the 4th wall. What hasn't aged so well? The play's rigid gender roles. Antrobus is the eternal mad genius whose cascade of new ideas define civilization's forward movement, the brilliant male kept alive by the synergy of sexual temptation and a maternal domestic presence. Men have the ideas, women either distract/"inspire" or via their fecundity procreate. It's in the play's text, this division of tasks, and it's hard to make accessible today. (It wasn't all that easy when I played Mr. Antrobus in high school, I must note, but we had this thing called Vietnam to give the play's movement toward war relevance.) A production might turn all of that on its ear in gender fluid casting, perhaps a non-binary Antrobus or Sabina. I'm not making a specific cast for that, just amplifying that the roles are so gender-specific in Wilder's world building, it might be off-putting to many in today's climate. I don't see how you can stage the play now -- especially that second act in Atlantic City -- without entering uncomfortable waters of sexual politics. Maybe I'm wrong. |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 02:51 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - Delvino 09:36 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
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| That was not at all the story told in TFANA’s production. If anything, they very much told the opposite story, with the women being the strong figures and Mr. Antrobus bumbling his way through and making things worse until the whole family is stranded on the roof of their house. A lot of people are taking about this play being dated or not being a fit for our times without acknowledging that this is the second major NYC production in five years. Arin Arbus’ interpretation was incredibly well received, and the play - though not perhaps the interpretation from last century - still has phenomenal power to talk about our troubled society. |
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| re: The Skin of Our Teeth | |
| Posted by: Delvino 11:41 am EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - Singapore/Fling 02:51 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
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| "That was not at all the story told in TFANA’s production. If anything, they very much told the opposite story, with the women being the strong figures and Mr. Antrobus bumbling his way through and making things worse until the whole family is stranded on the roof of their house." Did they alter the text? The gender roles are in the script. It's not my interpretation. I'm certainly open to any staging making a fresh case, but both Mrs. Antrobus and Sabina announce their societal positions based on function in a patriarchal construct. It's not something audience infer or deduce subjectively. It's spelled out. It may be that staging helps correct an imbalance, but the script is the script. |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: Dale 04:48 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: The Skin of Our Teeth - Singapore/Fling 02:00 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Not eager to see this but it is the Vivian Beaumont and I've seen a lot of great productions staged there over the years. I got a cheap seat, so hoping for the best! | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: JohnDunlop 09:09 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - Dale 04:48 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| I completely agree. And I saw the 1950s television version with George Abbott, Helen Hayes, Mary Martin and Don Murray |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 10:02 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - JohnDunlop 09:09 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Is that available anywhere? I would love to see it. I actually love the play--and, given what we know about anthropology (and where humans probably originated), having the Antrobuses played by actors of African descent actually makes sense! | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 10:32 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - BruceinIthaca 10:02 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Genuine question, how does anthropology and the origins of humans play into the racial background of a family living in New Jersey during the prehistoric ice age that is also the present? | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 09:46 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - Singapore/Fling 10:32 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| My posting was partly tongue in cheek, but if, as archeology suggests, human beings seem to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa and if we view the Antrobuses (and Sabina) as some version of Adam, Eve, and Lilith (only one of many readings), it is not simply knee-jerk "wokism" (as its detractors might suggest--I hate the use of "woke" to dismiss efforts to move dialogue and action on racial issues forward) to cast POC in these roles. Of course, the play is an expansive, ambitious reach on all levels (and, controversially, perhaps more influenced by Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" than Wilder first acknowledged--though, to his credit, when it was pointed out, he very non-defensively expressed his admiration for that novel and said he was possibly influenced by it in writing Skin). But, of all 20th century plays of the period I can think, this one seems one of the least needing "naturalistic" casting. It's a bit like children's theatre for grown-ups. (And one of my favorites.) | |
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| The Vivien Leigh tv version is on YouTube if you look | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 12:32 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:32 pm EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - BruceinIthaca 09:46 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
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| actually only the first two acts on separate links, as the 3rd Act is presumed missing. She's great, with star power galore and excellent comedic ability. | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 11:05 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 11:02 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - Singapore/Fling 10:32 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| it’ll be very tricky to cast. Sabina has to be such an entertainer, but she also has to be very okay with being the chippie, the loose woman, and second-class because she’s not the wife. And I think that’s where the play might run aground...on the unfashionable un-wokeness of the husband-wife-maidservant triangle. I grant you that Wilder knew what he was doing, but the “woke” climate might disapprove of this and refuse to laugh. Sabina has to be deeply contented with her lot in life for the play to work. Like a Tuesday Weld or an Ann-Margret. Plus she’s like a charismatic emcee. Big shoes to fill. The woke culture often casts shame (and shade) upon what we used to laugh about regarding sex and sex roles. | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 01:02 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - lordofspeech 11:02 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Mary Wiseman killed as Sabina in the TFANA production, which approached the part as an archetype (as I think Wilder’s script does), which gave them space to both embody the tropes and comment on them - as I think the script also wants from the performer. You have an odd reading that Sabina is contented, though. Modern productions have very successfully presented the opposite, with Sabina as the ultimate striver who steals the power from Mr. Antrobus and claims her own destiny. There’s nothing more woke than that, and nothing more subversive from a playwright that America still doesn’t like to acknowledge was queer. |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: ryhog 11:28 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - lordofspeech 11:02 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Like someone else whose post I commented on, you seem to think that being sensitive to social justice is a bad thing. It would be really nice if people would stop employing "woke" as a pejorative because it isn't. FWIW, I know the play inside and out, I love it, and Sabina is the smartest, wisest, sexiest, and most powerful person on that stage. That production in the park that everyone seems to be obsessed with was not representative of the play. It was a dumb production that was presented at or near the nadir of the Public Theater. | |
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| re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." | |
| Posted by: mgm79 11:25 am EDT 03/16/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "play is very much still relevant if the production finds a modern way to tell the story." - ryhog 11:28 pm EDT 03/15/22 | |
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| Tremendously challenging piece of theater for the creatives and the audience. I have seen several productions over the years and only one was able to keep the tone and themes afloat and resonant - Darko Trensjak's 2000 production at Williamstown. Great cast, smart design with strong sense of play and whimsy but packed a shivering chill. | |
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