The Skin of Our Teeth NYC Reviews and Tickets

“Ms. Arbus doesn’t entirely restore ‘Skin’ to newborn sprightliness. But she makes you appreciate why its first audiences cherished it…It’s as a big-picture production that this ‘Skin’ captures, tickles and distresses the imagination. Ms. Arbus has enlisted a crackerjack production team and a diverse cast of nearly three dozen to fill Wilder’s eternity-sized canvas. The production deploys them with wit and efficiency, while retaining an endearing air of ramshackle spontaneity.”
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"Having influenced generations of avant-garde theater, Wilder’s nonlinear storytelling and metatheatrical trickery have lost much of their surprise, and his symbolism often feels heavy. Arin Arbus’s staging for Theatre for a New Audience prods this unwieldy epic forward...What’s missing is a more intimate sense of the central family as human beings and not merely archetypes. It’s a treat to see this seminal work on its feet...But the play’s strange comfort has gone a little cold."
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“One of the lasting enigmas of this classic of the American stage that you'll either love or hate…Director Arin Arbus leads a production that is as visually impressive as it is bizarre…Not everyone will appreciate Wilder's idiosyncratic combination of philosophy and frivolity, which sometimes sags under the weight of its own hefty allegory. Still, it is impossible not to appreciate the work Arbus and her cast have put into this faithful revival, a rare opportunity to see this important work.”
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"Has 'Skin of Our Teeth'...passed its sell-by date?...It's a clever, multilayered premise, dizzily balancing vaudeville comedy with unsentimental conclusions about humanity's destructive impulses, while insisting that...hope still lingers. It must have been something in its day...Arbus seems to wrestle with this problem, adding all sorts of contemporary touches...The result is definitely patchy, especially since Arbus has no real flair for the play's oddball lightly cartooned sense of humor."
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"Thornton Wilder's 'The Skin of Our Teeth,' with its benign belief in the resilience of the human condition, is unlike any other American play you are likely to see. Both heavily influenced by earlier European experiments in theater, it is also influential in itself. While Arin Arbus' production for Theatre for a New Audience at times seems as though it needs tightening up, it is a play that must be experienced in the theater, which is why it has never been turned into a Hollywood movie."
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"Relevance is the key here. Thornton’s work, remarkable for its time, only holds up in parts. The first act is easier to connect to: stories of hard times, helping refugees and a longing for a better life. But it’s harder for an audience to relate to the remainder of the play...Arbus and the cast do a remarkable job...'The Skin of Our Teeth' is fodder for deep reflection, and though harder to relate to in a modern era, still lays before us an often painful universal truth."
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“If you haven't already done so, get a ticket to see the Theater for a New Audience production...What makes it well worth a trip to Brooklyn?...Pretty much everything!…Director Arbus is as inventive as Wilder's central characters…’While this 'Skin of Our Teeth’ resonates uncomfortably with our own world, it is a more powerful than ever theatrical experience that will have you laughing and enjoying yourself, even as it leaves you contemplating how to remain optimistic."
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"Imaginatively directed by Arin Arbus, Thornton Wilder’s 'The Skin of Our Teeth' is a wildly original, ambitious tragicomedy...The theatrical experience is unlike any you’ll probably have. With all its farcical and absurdist dramatic elements, Biblical allusions, topsy-turvy timeline, and musical interludes, it is a singular production with a universal human story at its core. After all, Wilder wrote it meaning to unite humanity, a sentiment all too crucial in this modern age."
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