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The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play (Perennial Classics)
by: Thornton Wilder

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780060088934
ISBN: 0060088931
Label: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: April 01, 2003
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release Date: April 15, 2003
Sales Rank: 64648
Studio: Harper Perennial Modern Classics

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:

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 and human endurance, this beautiful new edition features Wilder's unpublished production notes, diary entries, and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A Groundbreaking Classic: A Comic Collage Of Catastrophe And Endurance
Ecological disaster? Pervasive human folly? World War? The end of the world itself? According to Thornton Wilder, we've been there and done that so many times that we should have learned a thing or two about it by now. First performed in the darkest days of World War II, THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH is a highly theatrical, bizarrely comic take on the disasters that befall the human race--and a commentary on the durability of the human spirit.

The play presents us with the perfect American family: father, mother, son, daughter, and a housemaid, all living in middleclass comfort in Excelsior, New Jersey. They dress in modern attire, more or less; they speak in modern terms, more or less; and the world in which they live contains such modern details as telegrams and such. But it is also the middle of the prehistoric ice-age and the glaciers are moving in to crush them all. The end of the world is at hand! ... Read More

Rating:

- All too human
This is a strange play. The political satire is timeless. However, I did not read it for enjoyment. I read it to help me to understand it a little more before I saw it adapted in a German theater is Saarbruchen. The little acting company was excellent and I enjoyed the play in its updated version.

Rating:

- "The end of this play isn't written yet."
Ignoring the conventions of time, this playful "message play" follows one family from the days of the glaciers and dinosaurs to a post-apocalyptic, modern world. George Antrobus, the inventor of the wheel, and Maggie, his wife, the inventor of the apron, have two children, Gladys and Henry (whose previous name was Cain). The bossy father, domestic and subservient mother, aggressive and dangerous son, and innocent daughter interact, often humorously, onstage and are also seen through the viewpoint of Sabina, the flirtatious maid. As the play progresses through the eras, Wilder raises questions about civilization and values. George, by Act II, is convinced that the world is made for pleasure and power, but by the final act, after a world cataclysm, the family confronts what is truly important in their lives.

A pet dinosaur and a wooly mammoth, the Boardwalk of New Jersey and the Miss America contest, the ... Read More

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