All of human history, as seen by one maid

By Molly Jane Rhodes

In regards to the major catastrophes that have occurred across the immense volumes of our collective human history, we like to persist in the theory that hindsight is 100 percent clairvoyant. Therefore, whatever mistakes we may have made can be learned from and, in the immediate future, corrected and set right.

However, the problem with hindsight is that it presupposes a place where we can stand completely outside of history, a point where we can separate ourselves from the weight of our emotions and personal hang-ups to objectively and purely judge our own creations. It presupposes that we are composed of passions utterly different from those who came before us.

Thorton Wilder's, '19, play The Skin of Our Teeth implodes these assumptions through the direct and unromanticized portrayal of a nuclear family in New Jersey. The family is ripped through The Ice Age, The Flood, and The (latest) War to End All Wars, teetering on the brink of disaster but wholly consumed with their own affairs, even when lights start blinking "the end of the world." They interpret the chaos surrounding their lives only so far as it affects their day-to-day relationships and desires. There's never a sense of questioning or challenging the world that they live in; they plunge all their energies into coping with what they're given rather than trying to change it.

Attempting to maintain a sense of nuclear family normalcy in the midst of literal chaos could easily put the audience into an antagonist frame of mind: how stupid can these people be? But Wilder creates a more clever play, and Liz Diamond directs a more infectious production, than one which allows us to check out and make sideways comments; Wilder draws us in from the get-go with the character of Sabina, the housemaid, who voices our incredulity before we do. She comments on the play before we are given the chance; and despite her professed aloofness and superiority to it all, even she is drawn into the drama, carrying us along as well.

Svetlana Efremova, DRA '97, in the role of Sabina, charms and whips us into her affections from the start; we rely on Sabina throughout the play to save us from being thrown too deep into hyperbolic absurdity. I wanted more of a separation between Sabina the character and Svetlana the actress; it's an effective gimmick to work both of them on the audience, but I rarely felt there was anything genuine Svetlana desired beyond the fourth wall.

Obi Ndefo, DRA '97, best milks this division between himself as an actor and as the character Henry. He has no apology for the swings in emotion he's called on to make; he throws himself into each moment full throttle, and it is a very dour audience member indeed who isn't inspired to throw herself into that moment with him.

The two main characters Sabina/Svetlana picks at and prods are the flagship of this nuclear family, George Antrobus (James Shanklin, DRA '97), and Mrs. Antrobus (Jill Marie Lawrence, DRA '97). Shanklin exudes a center of weight that acts as the eye of the storm everyone is caught in--no matter if this weight is stuffed with absolute fact or folly. George relies on words of other great thinkers when he finally gets around to telling his wife what he wants in life, but he never completely subverts the basic things he holds dear.

In the same way, Mrs. Antrobus remains true to the core of her beliefs, even as the core of the earth which surrounds her is being ripped apart. Lawrence's luscious voice does much to convey a woman who will not be moved from her principles or place. There is a reassuring solidity to Mrs. Antrobus. It allows her to go only so far, but also lets her survive and thrive in this place she has carved for herself.

The set, designed by Walt Spangler, highlights the collision between the ordinary and phenomenal. The moveable objects, those that are touched, are for the most part kitsch and crude, the type of things that are manufactured by the thousands. Every family owns one and every family holds it dear. Around these objects, however, the walls which shift to push in or pull back are more ephemeral, like the plastic sheets you put over furniture or plots of land still unidentified and unsafe. The costumes, designed by Michael Oberle, are a mish-mash of time and thought; fashion, like history, is unpredictably cyclical. Each time the same idea comes around again, it may be varied to fit recent inventions, but it is still just as powerful and unknowable as the first time it was created.

A play which treats all historical past as an inescapable precedent for the future seems an interesting choice for the third year acting students at the School of Drama, about to face a powerful and unknowable future of their own. But Wilder does offer us a sliver of comfort before he packs us and them out of this particular theatre; even if he uses the words of other philosophers, they still unfold thoughts and ideas which have lasted through the constant onslaughts of time. These act as little trinkets of hope and order which we can incorporate into our lives, if we so choose. And you must see the play, if you are to make that choice of your own.

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