We join the Antrobus family in the midst of three catastrophes. The Ice Age, Great Flood, and World War II. They are the quintessential nuclear family, each member an archetype for the ages. Sabina, the maid, is the conniving, seductive siren. Henry is Cain, the wounded, homicidal delinquent. Gladys is the spirited, adventurous daughter. Maggie is the fierce, pragmatic mother, determined to protect her nest, the mainstay of civilization. George the dad, is raucous, pompous, goodhearted and subject to Sabina’s spell. George has true genius, the spark that nudges humanity toward evolution. The alphabet, the wheel, mathematics. His accomplishments stand with Newton, Einstein, Guttenberg. Not simply discovery, but how they impact history.
Playwright Thornton Wilder has assembled a montage. Scraps and torn pieces from the experience of the every day. It might be a ticket to the movies, a parking citation, a foreclosure, a phone bill, a lab result. Despite their disparate nature, he finds a way to make them fit. To make them work. The result is far beyond the sum of its parts. Wilder has created a gloss of human experience. Over centuries, over tragedies, over warfare, over celebration.
He creates a context where the Antrobus family dwells, and struggles to subsist. Chaos besieges from forces from without and within. During the ice age they must fight horrendous, unbelievable cold. Worse than they’ve ever seen. Sabina is more concerned with petty tribulations than keeping the crucial fire lit. Henry is in dark trouble at school. Maggie makes impossible decisions because she must. George offers refuge to starving refugees when they barely have enough to live on, themselves.
The Skin of Our Teeth ignores the fourth wall. He includes us in the extremes of survival. Sandwiches are passed. The show stops to replace members of the cast. The fortune teller and Sabina address us directly. He crisscrosses details from different times. The Great Flood arrives at the Boardwalk. Anachronistic turning points are referenced in each act. In contrast to her husband, Maggie discovers nylon stockings and the silkworm. Her inventions are less lofty but more useful in the day to day.
The Skin Our Teeth assembles the universe (with delirious and imaginative surprises) within the confines of the Antrobus home and the Undermain Stage. It’s a curious allegory mixing the outlandish with the interpersonal. You might call it a Handbook for Surviving the Unthinkable. Miseries we only consider in the abstract, until they’re unavoidable. George, Maggie, Henry and Gladys are terribly flawed and also heroic, just like the rest of us. And just like us, fractured and lost and vain though we may be, we deserve to thrive.
One imagines director Stefan Novinski spinning plates on sticks like jugglers from back in the day. So many simultaneous elements to keep track of, but thanks to Novinski, they converge. Narration by newsreel, a model of the Antrobus home, cardboard houses encircling the perimeter, a reporters desk, puppets, a succession of performers quoting the great philosophers. We see the actors playing their parts but also, in the “role” of themselves. Wilder sews the thread as witness to humanity. Humanity is the connective tissue. The actors here are versatile and focused, shifting between mood and situation, with equal panache. They tuck into their characters with furvor.
Undermain Theatre presents: The Skin of our Teeth playing February 14th -March 8th, 2026. 3200 Main Street, Dallas, Texas. Tickets at Undermain.org. 214-747-5515