The Skin of our Teeth, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, Nyack, New York

Abstract

The opening performance of the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s production of The Skin of Our Teeth was cancelled due to rain. The second afternoon of this outdoor production seemed like it might be headed for the same fate. A gale warning was issued for the Nyack, New York, area. A hurricane had pummeled Florida earlier that weekend and was heading up the coast. Gray skies and chilly weather prompted producers to hand out blankets and serve hot beverages prior to the performance. The show did go on, with the ominous weather conditions adding to the apocalyptic themes raised throughout the play.The production, directed by Karen Case Cook, was staged at the Marydell Hope and Life Center, a scenic spiritual retreat located on the outskirts of Nyack. The bare-bones set designed by Chen-Wei Liao resembled a sundial. A miniature replica of Stonehenge stood upstage. Four bentwood chairs lay toppled inside the circle. Small stone pillars were scattered around. From the center of the sundial rose a large gnomon. A program note explained that the set symbolized “the circular nature of time,” and “the inexplicable timelessness of man’s creations.” It evoked the feeling of an ancient Greek ruin and seemed to rise naturally from the picturesque meadow. A tree rose from the ground upstage center, a weeping willow drooped upstage right, and a lush Rockland County forest completed the scene.Wilder’s play does not immediately call to mind an outdoor setting, yet this is not the first time that it has been staged outdoors. In 2019 Will Geer’s Theatrical Botanicum produced the play on a “minimally furnished” outdoor stage (Miller). For the 1998 Public Theatre production in Central Park directed by Irene Lewis, scenic designer John Conklin piled “a jumble of chintz-and-Americana furnishings on a giant, pea green game board” (Isherwood). The Public Theater production also included Mimi Jordan Sherin’s lighting design, which featured “big bursts of color” and “bright lights” (Isherwood). The lighting for the Nyack production consisted solely of natural sunlight.As the play was about to begin, actors appeared behind the set in what might be considered the backstage area and sat down on blankets. A stage manager, dressed in a Phantom of the Opera T-shirt and hoodie, who seemed to be an actual stage manager and not actor Ariel Estrada playing the role of Mr. Fitzpatrick, counted the actors to make sure they were all present. One actor was missing, and Estrada left to look for him. This did not appear to be part of the performance, but those familiar with the 1983 televised production might recall that backstage antics were staged. In that production, a frustrated stage manager, played by Jonathan McMurtry, demanded that Miss Somerset, played by a feisty Blair Brown, be brought up onstage (The Skin 00:01–00:0038).After the missing actor had been located, Estrada came downstage and introduced himself as Fitzpatrick. He directed the audience to remove a program insert and scan the first of two QR codes with their phones. The theater company’s website containing an embedded video popped up. Estrada/Fitzpatrick counted down so that audience members would press play on the video simultaneously.The video that played was artfully created by Rudi Gohl. Its sepia tones evoked a 1940s newsreel. It contained a series of images as indicated in Wilder’s stage directions, including “the sun appearing over the horizon,” “a glacier,” and a “modest suburban home” (Collected Plays 213, 214). A voiceover, using text taken directly from Wilder’s script, was played over speakers for those who were not able to access the video on their phones, although it appeared that most audience members had been able to do so. This same technique was used at the opening of Act 2 for the Announcer’s lines. This second “newsreel” was equally artful and set the stage for Atlantic City. The use of cellphones to access the newsreels was an inventive solution for the limitations of the outdoor setting. In some past productions directors have used Wilder’s opening to contemporize the play. In a 2007 production at Crossley Theater in Los Angeles, director Jon Lawrence Rivera used the news to report on death tolls of Americans in Iraq and to discuss “the new Democratic majority’s first achievements” (Raymond). The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s production illustrated that Wilder’s script needs no such attempts to force relevance; it is relevant as-is.After the newsreel concluded, Valeria A. Avina, playing Lilly Sabina Fairweather, entered with cartoonish anxiety. Her over-the-top delivery—if not her short, bleached-blonde and partially shaved head—evoked Lucille Ball rather than Tallulah Bankhead, who played Sabina in the original Broadway production. Avina pulled the gnomon out of the ground and straightened the chairs and toppled pillars. Avina’s comic-book performance was highlighted by Debbi Hobson’s costume design. She wore a blue dress with white polka dots. At one point, Avina flung herself down on a chair, revealing brightly colored bloomers.Avina’s Commedia style of acting and fast-paced delivery certainly made her an engaging stage presence, although at times her pacing was so quick lines were unclear. When Avina stepped out of character to speak to the audience, there was no doubt that these moments were part of the production and not an actor stepping out of character to comment on the play. In “Difficulties Presenting The Skin of Our Teeth,” Malcolm Goldstein has written about the necessity for the actors to take part in both “low-comedy clowning,” and for them to be able to drop their stage roles and appear as actors who have been engaged to appear in a play titled The Skin of Our Teeth. . . . The development of characters on so many planes at once requires skill in balancing and adjusting dialogue in such a way as to avoid awkwardness in the transition from one level of personality to another.It was this development of character that was lacking in Avina’s performance.Sabina’s frantic comic energy was countered by the fortitude of Mrs. Antrobus, expertly played by Elise Stone. In a 1955 letter to Alan Schneider, Wilder wrote, “I’ve never seen a Mrs A that I’d buy. I’ve seen school-marms and injured tragedy-queens, and agitated hens” (Selected Letters 533). Stone’s portrayal was none of these, so perhaps Wilder would have approved of Stone’s Mrs. A. (Fig. 1). Her shining moment came in Act 2, as she spoke about women: MRS. ANTROBUS: We’re not what books and plays say we are. We’re not what advertisements say we are. We’re not in the movies and we’re not on the radio.We’re not what you’re all told and what you think we are: We’re ourselves.(Collected Plays 260)At the end of her speech, Gladys, played by Clara Francesa, sprung up from her blanket to applaud her mother. But this addition was unnecessary. Stone’s excellent delivery, which made it seem like she might be speaking of more recent assaults on women’s rights, needed no embellishment.The final moments of Act 1 were made even more dramatic by the wind blowing overhead. The refugees, played by Leo Lion, Ariel Estrada, and Wesley Spencer, huddled beneath the Stonehenge structure at the rear of the stage. The Mammoth and the Dinosaur—played by John Lenartz and Jessica Crandall in headpieces that evoked the splendor of Handspring Puppetry—had been cast out of the house. When Mr. Antrobus mentioned the Muses, he broke the fourth wall, indicating that the singers were among the spectators. The notion that the audience was among the group of refugees was strengthened when Mr. Antrobus asked Sabina to “pass the sandwiches” (Collected Plays 234). She produced a basket of Twinkies and stepped into the audience to distribute them.The energy of Act 1 continued to escalate as Gladys ran through the audience to look for her father’s slippers, which were hidden under a chair. Francesca flawlessly played Gladys with the girlish energy of a child who desperately wants to please her father. When the family gathered in a tableau at the foot of the stage, Gladys knelt by her father’s side proclaiming, “Look, Papa, here’s my report card” (Collected Plays 238). Mr. Antrobus, solidly played by Craig A. Bannister, had other things on his mind. He stared vacantly out at the audience, as if contemplating the end of the world. The wind picked up as Sabina ran into the audience to grab a chair, and for a moment it felt like the world might indeed be ending.After a brief intermission, Act 2 began. The set was transformed into Atlantic City with two striped beach umbrellas and an old-fashioned microphone placed center stage. This simple staging contrasts with some of the more elaborate sets sometimes seen for Wilder’s second act. Wilder’s stage directions call for “two cardboard cut-outs six feet high, representing shops at the back of the stage” and roller chairs to “traverse the stage in both directions” (Collected Plays 244). The recent Lincoln Center revival included large, illuminated signs for the Bingo Parlor, Saltwater Taffy and Turkish Baths, along with a three-story-tall slide in an eye-catching set designed by Adam Rigg (“Tour the Set With”). The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s production had no trace of spectacle. Even the chair pushers were absent. However, the beach umbrellas and the striped jackets and red hats of the Conveeners were sufficient to transform the playing area. If any audience members were in doubt about the new location, a Conveener walked across the stage holding a sign that read “Atlantic City” in bold red letters.The highlight of Act 2 was Jessica Crandall’s mesmerizing performance as the Fortune Teller. Crandall delivered her speeches directly to the audience, as indicated by Wilder’s stage directions. She pointed at audience members for predictions of “Apoplexy!” and “Death by regret,—Type Y” (Collected Plays 246). Her performance was simultaneously chilling and comic and helped to convey the notion that the audience was very much present in Atlantic City with the Antrobuses.Wilder’s stage directions suggest that Sabina appear in a “blue raincoat that almost conceals her red bathing suit” (Collected Plays 245), but Hobson dressed her in a white sundress with red cherries and dark red tights. The costume and Alvina’s Arlechino-esque delivery worked against the idea of Sabina as seductress and femme fatale. When she was seducing Mr. Antrobus, the scene was silly rather than titillating. And while amusing, it weakened the moment when Sabina broke the fourth wall to explain, “I’m not going to play this particular scene tonight” (254). There was never any fear that a true seduction might be played out on the stage, and therefore Miss Somerset’s desire to spare a friend held little substance (Fig. 2).Wilder’s stage directions call for a weather signal “like the mast of a ship with cross bars. From time to time black discs are hung on it to indicate the storm and hurricane warnings” (244). In this production, the Conveeners held up large red, yellow, and white discs for the weather signals. The fourth and final disc was an image of planet Earth with an “X” through it. As the storm approached, the Antrobus family made their way out through the audience to board the boat. The wind seemed to pick up, or perhaps it was simply the atmosphere evoked by Cook’s staging and Ellen Mandel’s excellent sound design, which combined the ocean waves with a cacophony of animal noises. As the world ended, the Atlantic City Conveeners danced in a conga line across the stage, highlighting their devil-may-care attitude as they were consumed by the coming flood.For Act 3 the stage was reset to appear as it had at the beginning of the show, with its toppled towers, advancing the idea that history repeats itself. Wilder’s script calls for Sabina’s entrance at the opening of Act 3 to be interrupted by Fitzpatrick, this time to inform us that several cast members have fallen ill backstage. Due to double-casting and the constant presence of the actors sitting in the back of the stage area, there was no doubt that this was all part of the play. Cook’s direction made this moment quite comic. A notable performance was given by Leo Lion as Ivy, or Ivan as he was referred to in this production, who also skillfully portrayed the telegraph boy in Act 1. He played Ivan with a Russian accent; rather than saying his father was a “Baptist minister” (Collected Plays 267), he said his father was a “Russian Orthodox Priest.” This line change might have occurred because Nyack has a sizable Russian Orthodox community. After Ivy’s line “Yes, sir. I know that and I know twelve o’clock and I know nine o’clock” (267), Fitzpatrick inserted the line, “All right, Stanislavski,” which received a sizable laugh from the audience.Another notable performance in Act 3 was given by Josh Tyson as Henry. His lines “I’m going a long way from here and make my own world that’s fit for a man to live in. Where a man can be free, and have a chance, and do what he wants to do in his own way” (277) were particularly chilling. However, the moment when he attacked Antrobus was broken up too quickly.The choice to have the Hours surround the audience on all sides made for a powerful ending, as did Wesley Spencer’s excellent delivery as Tremayne/The Bible. After Tremayne’s lines, Wilder’s script calls for a blackout, which could not occur on an outdoor stage. Instead, the Antrobus family and the Hours stayed in a frozen tableau. Sabina reappeared in her blue dress. “This is where you came in. We have to go for ages and ages yet” (284), she said, and for once it seemed like Avina was speaking as herself.There was much to applaud about this production. The outdoor setting and Cook’s staging reminded us of our shared humanity; like the city of Nyack, which was hit hard by the COVID pandemic, we can all rise from the ashes, and pull through tough times by The Skin of Our Teeth.