| What's your favorite American play? | |
| Posted by: fabjim50 08:00 pm EDT 10/14/24 | |
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| I'll start: Thornton Wilder's 1942 masterpiece THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, a sensational, groundbreaking, phantasmagorical journey through "all the troubles the human race has been through, now there's a subject for you." Ostensibly about a suburban nuclear family in New Jersey trying to get through life, it rapidly warps into a universal story about all families through time. Act 1 is during the Ice Age - "It's the coldest day of the year in the middle of August and it's simply freezing, the dogs are sticking to the sidewalks." The family has a pet dinosaur and mammoth. The act ends with refugees accompanied by Moses invading their house. It goes on like this with Act 2 at Atlantic City during the Miss America pageant and Noah's flood, and Act 3 back at home after a war. Throughout, the fourth wall is repeatedly broken and the actors complain about what they're doing, the leading lady screams "I hate this play and every word in it!" - in addition to getting through life, they're trying to get through the play itself. The recent Lincoln Center revival at Vivian Beaumont was great, but since it's such a complicated play it takes a while for the cast to get into it - I saw it first in previews and then during the last week and it had improved considerably. I think it's a show that should be frequently revived with stars who would draw an audience in that would normally not see it. There's a great version of it from a live PBS broadcast in 1983 directed by Jack O'Brian with Blair Brown and Sada Thompson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHQ9jcP5fCw | |
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