SECOND YEAR STUDENTS PERFORMANCE PROJECT
THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH BY THORNTON WILDER
“ …the events of our homely daily life –
this time the family life – are depicted against the vast dimensions of time and place. 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. It has been often charged with being a bookish fantasia about history, full of rather bloodless schoolmasterish jokes. But to have seen it in Germany soon after the war, in the shattered churches and beerhalls that were serving as theatres, with audiences whose price of admission meant the loss of a meal…was an experience that was not so cool.” THORNTON WILDER
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ORIGIN™ THEATRICAL ON BEHALF OF SAMUEL FRENCH A CONCORD THEATRICALS COMPANY
DIRECTOR NOTES The Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey, seem like a typical American family, but they are living in the last Ice Age, and the world is about to end - again! Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus have been married for 5000 years, but can they survive a wall of ice, a great flood, famine and war, their disappointing children, and their own fracturing relationship? As the United States entered World War 2, Thornton Wilder wrote a madcap comedy about how human beings cope with disaster and our capacity for both good and evil. Spanning different eras, and combining mythology, history, satire and allegory, The Skin of Our Teeth was a surprising popular success and has maintained its relevance and influence since its opening.
“Almost any evening, somewhere in America, the curtain is going up on a play by Thornton Wilder. Last year alone, there were four hundred productions. His play “The Skin of Our Teeth,” from 1942, made up about a quarter of those productions...” THE NEW YORKER, 2017
DURATION ACTS I AND II: 100 MINS INTERVAL: 10 MINS ACT III: 45 MINS
This meta-theatrical masterpiece is part American sit-com, part parable. Time and place and the very fabric of the theatre warp and collide, as the play grapples with essential questions about humanity: its destiny, and its future survival.
TAFE Queensland Acting would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we learn, teach, and perform, the Jagera and Turrbal people. We would like to pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging. We acknowledge that Aboriginal people havebeen performing on and caring for this land, now known as Brisbane, for tens of thousands of years.
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TAFE QUEENSLAND RTO 0275 | CRICOS 03020E | PRV13003 UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA CRICOS 00212K | TEQSA PRV12003