Playwright Paula Vogel has said of Thornton Wilder’s 1943 play, The Skin of Our Teeth, now playing at Novato Theater Company through Feb. 15, that it’s “a remarkable gift to an America entrenched in catastrophe, a tribute to the trait of human endurance.”
This is not an easy play to produce, describe or watch, but it is a play worth the effort. Nominally, the plot follows the Antrobus family. Father George (Glenn Havlan), mother Maggie (Michele Sanner Vargas), son Henry (Dominic Marco Canty), daughter Gladys (Arya Safavi) and “maid” Sabina (Nicole Thordsen) navigate three world-ending catastrophes. The actual action of the play is a deep dive into intellectualism, absurdism, dark comedy and dinosaurs—OK, there’s only one dinosaur (Kevin Allen) and one mammoth (an excellent David Cole)—that asks the same question, “How resilient is humanity?”
Director Nic Moore has put together a solid cast for this notoriously difficult play. The transformation of Canty’s Henry to his rightful place as the rage-filled Cain (as in “and Abel”) is as masterful as it is hard to watch. Havlan’s George is solid, giving the rest of the cast a strong anchor. Vargas shines as the ultimate helicopter mom who may or may not be the mother of all humanity. Safavi is one of the most versatile young actors working in the area at the moment, which keeps Gladys from becoming one-note.
The simple set (Michael Walraven) and clever use of projections allow the play’s chaos to fill the space rather than trying to contain it. This, along with Moore’s thoughtful staging and a good use of lighting (Marilyn Izdebski), culminates in a third act that feels wholly too real to be comfortable.
With a play this chaotic, things are going to go awry. From some annunciation issues making the opening to the show difficult to understand to a beach ball hitting a patron in the face, the level of things that can go wrong with this play is one of the reasons it’s not often done. Another reason is that, as Wilder himself said of the play, “It was written on the eve of our entrance into the war and under strong emotion, and I think it mostly comes alive under conditions of crisis.”
Considering the state of our country at the moment, it’s no wonder that this play resonates.‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ runs through Feb. 15 at the Novato Theater Company, 5420 Nave Dr., Ste. C. Fri & Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm., $25–$37. 415.883.4498. novatotheatercompany.org.
