THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH
A comedy by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Jon Heron - Produced by Joyce Porter
Stage Managed by Stephanie Simons Neal
This hilarious, award-winning play premiered as America entered World War Two. With great humor, it tells a very old story: how humanity survives despite the incredibly foolish things it does. The story follows Mr. (Art Hickey) and Mrs. Antrobus (Catherine Rowe), their children (Al Contursi and Liz Levin), and their maid (Lynn Langone) as they deal with the Ice Age, the Flood, a devastating war, all while inventing the alphabet, the wheel, and the singing telegram. It's a play full of hope and laughter. Additional cast members for the Circle production include Pat Carpenter, Christie Leigh Carver, Ithamar Francois, Pearl Gannett, David Neal, Rob Pherson and Keri-Lynn Sirkin.
WHEN:
March 3 - 19, 2006
Friday: Mar. 3, 10, and 17, 2006 at 8:00 pm - $15
Saturday: Mar. 4, 11, and 18, 2006 at 8:00 pm - $15
Sunday: Mar. 12 and 19, 2006 at 3:00 pm - $12
March 3 - 19, 2006
Friday: Mar. 3, 10, and 17, 2006 at 8:00 pm - $15
Saturday: Mar. 4, 11, and 18, 2006 at 8:00 pm - $15
Sunday: Mar. 12 and 19, 2006 at 3:00 pm - $12
WHERE:
Circle Players
416 Victoria Avenue Piscataway, NJ 08854
Circle Players
416 Victoria Avenue Piscataway, NJ 08854
HOW TO ORDER TICKETS:
You can order tickets either by phone or by email
By Phone
1. Call the box office at (732) 968-7555
2. Listen to the options.
3. Leave your name, number of tickets you want, date of performance, and phone number where you can be reached.
By Email
Go to the Circle Players website http://www.circleplayers.com/ and select Ticket Orders from the menu. Follow the instructions.
You can order tickets either by phone or by email
By Phone
1. Call the box office at (732) 968-7555
2. Listen to the options.
3. Leave your name, number of tickets you want, date of performance, and phone number where you can be reached.
By Email
Go to the Circle Players website http://www.circleplayers.com/ and select Ticket Orders from the menu. Follow the instructions.
HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!
posted by Catherine Rowe @ 5:00 PM
2 Comments:
THEATER REVIEW
Thorton Wilder comedy makes you laugh and think
Home News Tribune Online 03/14/06
By BILL ZAPCIC - STAFF WRITER
Repeat after me: "Ha, ha, ha, hmmm."
The Circle Players are presenting Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth," a Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy from the mid-1940s believed by some in the theater to be the best American play ever written. Let's not go that far, though the show does reach some pinnacles unattained by other stage pieces. No, let's agree that "The Skin of Our Teeth" will make you laugh and think — and not forget it anytime soon.
With this production, the Circle Players continue their devotion to presenting plays rarely seen elsewhere. With more emphasis on acting and direction than sets in their small theater in the round, the Players bring to life a most unusual family, the Antrobus clan.
In itself, "Antrobus" is an ancient word for tree or bush, popping up in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book, the once-and-for-all census. The name's age is key to this play, for the family has been around about 5,000 years.
Wilder created a family that encompasses Adam and Eve, Noah and The Greatest Generation. Taken on the surface, "Teeth" is almost a "Flintstones" sitcom, with Mr. Antrobus (Art Hickey) working all day to invent the wheel yet sending a singing telegram to his suburban home to announce it.
Back at the ranch house, Mrs. Antrobus (Catherine Rowe) tends to the children, Henry (Al Contursi) and Gladys (Liz Levin) in a "Father Knows Best" 1950s style. She shoos the pet dinosaur and mammoth from the living room until the glacier forces her to relent. Complicating the family life ever so slightly is Sabina (Lynn Langone), whom Mr. Antrobus carried away from her home years before during the Rape of the Sabine Women. Even though Father knows best, Father knows lust.
The Antrobus clan survives the ice age, and in the second act heads to New Orleans for the mammals' convention, now that the warm-blooded critters dominate the earth. This time, a flood is the challenge, and they ride out the storm in a big boat.
By Act III, man's inhumanity to man grips the planet.
At this point, it's impossible to take this play solely on face value. Humanity's deadly sins and weaknesses, at times comic-silly, nonetheless again and again push the species to the brink of extinction. Humans hang on by the skin of their teeth.
The overall tone is wistful-hopeful, believing that humanity will pull through but that humanity will go a little too far again sometime. And lest the audience get complacent, Wilder throws in some theatrical twists that break the fourth wall — perfect for this space.
Hickey gives Mr. Antrobus a philosopher-seeker's steadiness; he's a man of tradition who also is aware of his significance as inventor and pioneer. Hickey captures Adam's susceptibility to temptation as well as a king's dual pomposity and devotion to duty.
Rowe is a rock as Mrs. Antrobus. If her husband is the seeker, she is the knower. Rowe puts a palpable strength into her character.
Contursi is appropriately childlike and volatile as Cain-turned-Henry. Levin does Gladys a disservice when she delivers her lines too quickly because her characterization is fine otherwise.
Then there is the riveting Langone. Petulant, occasionally meek, always sexy, she gives Sabina layer upon layer. She is Eden's serpent, a resident of Sodom or Gomorrah, a Helen of Troy, yet an often-repentant soul looking for the sun to rise and the haze to clear.
A solid ensemble fills out the many other peripheral characters.
The show demands a lot of movement; in the smallish confines of the theater here, some tighter direction might have served. But Jon Heron brought out the souls of some amazing characters, and that is the bonus.
Bill Zapcic:
'The Skin of Our Teeth'
By: Stuart Duncan, TIMEOFF, 03/08/2006
Circle Players revisits Thornton Wilder's ground-breaking comedy.
The Skin of Our Teeth might just be too much for today's spoiled audiences, accustomed to little but Neil Simon comedies and musicals with simple plots. The Thornton Wilder "comedy," which closely followed his much admired Our Town (the first was in 1939, the second three years later), both won a Pulitzer Prize for its author, but once that word "comedy" was changed to "allegory," audiences began to have second thoughts. Director Jon Heron and a strong cast at Circle Players in Piscataway have revived the play so we can decide for ourselves.
Wilder was raised in both California and China, was fluent in many languages and wrote both novels and plays. In fact, he won his first Pulitzer for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a novel he wrote in 1927. Apparently he had a restless mind — he set out to date all of Lope de Vega's plays and he adapted James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake for the stage. He served in the military in both world wars and at one point he acted in both Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. (Critic's note: I saw him play the stage manager in Our Town in Westport, Conn., in the '40s. He was dreadful.)
None of this precisely explains The Skin of Our Teeth, which stunned audiences and critics alike by taking on much of the history of mankind and breaking many old theater traditions. He broke the "fourth wall" by having his characters speak directly to the audience, sometimes in the middle of speeches. Notice that Sabina does it early and often. Later Wilder inserts a scene that seems to indicate the cast isn't really ready for an audience.
Notice also that he was playing with dinosaurs long before The Flintstones and having fun with political conventions long before Saturday Night Live. He asks us to consider the struggles of a single New Jersey family as it battles the ice age, the Great Flood and tries to clean up after the Napoleonic Wars. And when needed, he manages to toss in a line of dialogue that everyone can admire: "When you're at war, you think of a better way. When you're at peace, you think of a more comfortable way."
The cast at Circle is headed by Art Hickey and Catherine Rowe as Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus (the name should give you the clue that they represent MAN). Lynn Langone plays Sabina, nicely under control (it is not always thus). Al Contursi is a most effective Henry (also known as Cain) and Liz Levin has little to do as his sister Gladys. There also is an ensemble which picks up all the other various characters that step in and mess around a bit.
But the audience at the Saturday night performance I attended was clearly having problems with the depth of Wilder's imagination. As we slowly left the theater I overheard one older couple discussing the evening. "What was that all about?" the husband muttered.
"Oh George," his wife said brightly. "It's about love and hate and passion and everything — ever since the world began."
"Well," the man replied, "there must be more to it than that."
The Skin of Out Teeth continues at Circle Playhouse, 416 Victoria Ave., Piscataway, through March 19. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $12-$15, $11-$14 students. For information, call (732) 968-7555. On the Web: www.circleplayers.com
©PACKETONLINE News Classifieds Entertainment Business - Princeton and Central New Jersey 2006
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