Review: "The Skin Of Our Teeth", Curtain Players

Editor’s Note:  I attend about 70 live Central Ohio Theater shows per year, including high school, community theater, college and professional productions.

    I try to write something about everything that I see.  I don’t publish all my reviews.  In some cases, it’s because my overall perceptions are negative, and you know the old aphorism: “If you can’t say something nice…”

    Sometimes I get so busy that I don’t have time to write a timely, comprehensive review. 

     It seems sacrilegious to attempt explanations or embellishments for the great words and wisdom of a master such as Thornton Wilder.  Yet, I feel compelled to describe my involvement with this play.

     Writing about “The Skin Of Our Teeth” has been very difficult because of the uniqueness of the experience and because of the intensity of emotions and thoughts that it stirred up in me.   I have struggled to capture what this show meant to me.

     This review is an anomaly and an exception to most of my review-writing rules. This is a very “personal” review, because it was a very “personal” experience.

   For that reason, it seems right and proper that this should be my final review for 2016.     

“…Just like the hours and stars go by over our heads at night, in the same way the ideas and thoughts of the great men are in the air around us all the time and they’re working on us, even when we don’t know it…”

    Thornton Wilder gives us these and many other wonderful words in his Pulitzer Prize winning classic  “The Skin Of Our Teeth”.   

    My friends, Director Danielle Filas and Assistant Director Krista Threadgill put these and a few more of Wilder’s choice words into my mouth and persuaded me to stand in the middle of the stage and say the words, out loud, in front of audiences – not once, not twice, -- but three times, plus a couple rehearsals.

     Though I am passionate about theater, for many years I have sworn multiple oaths against my being on stage.  Yet there I was.  A friend who witnessed my performance reminded me, “Never say never. The experience shook me to my core.  That is why it has taken so long for me to write this review of Curtain Players May 2016 production of “The Skin Of Our Teeth.” 

     Like most people, my first knowledge of  Thornton Wilder came with his Pulitzer prize-winning  “Our Town” which was performed by my high school drama club when I was a sophomore. That was also my first solid connection to understanding and appreciating live theater. 

      My 11th-grade literature teacher led an extensive study of Wilder’s 1955 script “The Matchmaker” which became the vehicle for the beloved “Hello Dolly”.  Though “Hello Dolly” maintains much of the wit and wisdom from the “Matchmaker” it leaves out some of my favorite quotes, including the great Malachi Stack monolog where he tells the audience that they should learn to nurture one good vice in their bosom and let virtue spring up modestly around it.    

   “The Skin Of Our Teeth” is less well known and not as widely performed.  It is quirky and somewhat esoteric in its attempt to capture the allegorical truths of the history of humanity and the Everyman experiences of the four-person Antrobus family with their maid Sabina as they survive the ice age, famine, The Great Flood, and war, to carry on as humans must do through all the cycles and seasons of humanity’s struggles and triumphs; joys and sorrows.

     Scholars and critics describe the piece as a tragi-comedy with much of the comedy bordering on farce. 

    For me, the funniest moments come through the antics and side bits from Sabina (Kasey Meininger) who constantly breaks the fourth wall.  She tells the audience that she hates this play and is sorry she got dragged into it.  She claims to dislike the Antrobus family, but she keeps going along wherever their adventures take them. 

    As The Great Flood approaches, Sabina and the entire Antrobus family find themselves at a significant crossroads, marked by flashing lights that portend dire circumstances for all.

    Fortunately George Antrobus (Casey Merkey) comes to his senses and saves the mammals, including humans.  Sabina begs to be rescued as well, and Mrs. Maggie Antrobus (Molly Watson) decides to forgive and include Sabina in the rescue despite Sabina’s repeated treachery and betrayal.  Sabina becomes a loving and respectful member of the family, helping keep the home fires burning in the face of war.   

     The acting among principles Watson, Merkey, and Meininger was uniformly excellent with fine characterizations, believable relationships, attractive gestures, and effective ensemble work.

   Isaac Barnes brought much credibility to the role of Henry Antrobus, who is a reincarnation -- or perhaps a loving mother’s re-configuration of the Biblical Cain, best known for murdering his brother Able.  Despite his youth, Barnes achieved a level of sophistication worthy of the mash-up of the confusing humanness of innocent boy turned anti-hero who is constantly at war with everybody, including himself. 

   Jessica Weislogel completed the family circle as the naive, movie star loving good girl, who comes of age in the face of the flood and settles into maturity during war. 

   Supporting players Heather Schultz (Dinosaur/Fortune Teller), Brian Henry (Broadcaster/Doctor/News Reporter), Lizzy Merkey (Mammoth/Girl), Martina Holbrook (Telegraph Boy/Girl 2), Heather Fidler (Muses) Frank Peter (Moses/Covener) and JJ Sheehan (Homer/Covener/Broadcast Assistant) all distinguished themselves and found moments to stand out with the help of Filas’s excellent direction and Wilder’s brilliant prose.  I was especially impressed with Schultz’s comic timing, subtlety and physical expression in delivering the attitude of the fortune teller.

    Pivoting periaktoi’s from Set Designer Craig Choma and Set Construction/Painting Chief Neil Aring provided clever, space-efficient, colorful scenic background to suggest various settings, including the Antrobus living room, a carnival and seaside cabanas.

    Lighting design from Denise Dumouchelle featured a functional weather warning signal, much like a traffic light.  

    Holly Wetmore Kemeter’s design of the puppets that Fidler manipulated, provided a special added dimension and helped create three characters in one person.

     Wilder completed this script a month after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which led to the U.S.’s entry into WW II. 

      According to the Harper Collins study guide, Wilder’s addition of farcical elements was intended to help audiences accept, contemplate and understand many of the most horrific aspects of the human condition.  Wilder told people that the idea for including comedy came from a vaudeville bit where a rubber chicken flew off the stage and landed in Wilder’s lap. 

   This script includes references that can be adapted for local color and current events.  Typically I am not a fan of these kinds of script revisions and additions because they often descend to petty, tasteless, partisan political and social statements or allusions to sports that detract from effective theater storytelling.  Many audience members, --myself included -- go to the theater to escape sports. 

    Filas and her team wisely chose to use the updated, localized bits to incorporate lore that referred to Curtain Players history and personalities.

    My favorite such moment came when Sabina broke character in the midst of her seduction of George to argue with Stage Manager Kent Halloran over what the author wrote about the situation, because such words might “hurt the feelings” of some audience members.  (The stage manager is the primary foil for Sabina’s tirades when she breaks the fourth wall.)

   “I won’t say those lines, and I don’t care what Betty Peters thinks,” she told the stage manager.

    This was a reference to my being a stickler for exact wording on the many occasions when it has been my privilege to serve as rehearsal assistant for Curtain Players’ productions. The things said by actors who haven’t correctly memorized the lines, might convey the general ideas, but these paraphrases usually don’t match the splendor and facility of expression that playwrights have provided. 

     I had registered repeated reminders with Meininger about wording of her monologs when she played the role of Maggie in “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”  Thus it seemed appropriate that she would convey this ultimate coup de gras.  (By the way, Meininger was brilliant in “Cat” as well as “The Skin Of Our Teeth”. )

     At my first dress rehearsal for “Skin” Meininger delivered the line directly at me.  It was …I don’t care what that damned Betty Peters thinks.  I instantly burst into loud, hysterical laughter and kept laughing as Meininger continued the scene.  

   Some might have construed this line as vicious, mean-spirited sarcasm.  I saw it as an expression of understanding, acceptance and affection.   If they disliked me, why would they have encouraged me to become an honorary member of the cast? 

     I have found that most aspects of life are more understandable and endurable when I can laugh at myself and with my fellow human beings. I think that is part of what Wilder wanted people to recognize in this play.  I realized that I was among family and friends here in my Curtain Players Theater home.

   Meininger removed the “damned” during regular performances, out of respect for audience members who might not have known who I was or appreciated the extra colorful language.  I still laughed every time I heard it.

     My appearance on stage came toward the end of the play when members of the cast allegedly became ill and could not go on because they had consumed some questionable food from the Green Room refrigerator.  Stage Manager Halloran was forced to substitute people from the house staff into the roles of the hours.   We didn’t have to memorize the lines.  We were permitted to read them from the back of the placards we carried.  I tried to memorize my lines, because – well – it just seemed like the right thing for me to do, especially in view of the fact that I have been (and continue to be) that person who insists that actors have to memorize their lines accurately. 

      Having endured cold, hunger, flood, war and many of the other indignities that constantly plague humanity, George and Maggie Antrobus sit together in peaceful loving embrace.  George reflects upon his insights from the many great books that he treasured.  He tells Maggie that often, in the midst of war, he would stand on a hill and think about the wisdom of the scholars.  He named the hours after many of the great philosophers. 

     The lights dimmed on a beautiful stage picture of Maggie and George together and a bright light appeared at center stage as the four philosophers, representing the late night hours, poured out our wisdom.

   I was eleven o’clock.  I was shaking as I stepped forward to deliver my line:  “This good estate of the mind possessing its object in energy we call divine. This we mortals have occasionally and it is this energy which is pleasantest and best. But God has it always. “It is wonderful in us; but in Him how much more wonderful.”  

    I was shaking, but at the same time I was proud to be a part of this beautiful moment and pleased to be able to deliver some of Thornton Wilder’s wisdom.

Humbug Day

     Those crazy inventers of extra festivals have set aside December 21^st as Humbug Day, giving us permission to vent our inner Scrooge to relieve any holiday stress that we may be feeling.

    I admit that I am a “humbug”.  I don’t believe in all the “artificial” good cheer, group-gathering and gift-giving that are supposed to be hallmarks of the holiday season.

   I never understood the concept of needing to behave in some kind of different way or to adopt a special outlook at Christmas time.

    When I was a kid, those kinds of philosophies made me sad if not physically ill at Christmas.  

  My parents were children of The Great Depression.  WW II overshadowed their teen years and lasted into their twenties.  They were decent, principled, hard-working people, living their adult lives according to practical, common-sense, no-nonsense ideals and values and tried to raise their children to espouse those kinds of attitudes and values.

    We were a lower middle-class, blue-collar, church-every-Sunday Catholic family living on a small Southeastern Ohio farm. 

      Most requests for fancy clothes, the latest trendy toys or things like school pictures and class rings got brushed aside as being impractical and a waste of money. 

    At Christmas, all that got cast aside because my mother aspired to the good ideas she found in her Good Housekeeping magazines. 

   From Thanksgiving through Christmas Day, Mom led a campaign for family peace and good cheer. She bitched at my father in an attempt to stop his screaming and being grumpy toward his children, "because it was the Christmas season”.   

     Dad tried.  But being patient, cheerful and positive toward his children was not in his nature. He wasn't physically abusive.  I don't remember either of my parents touching any of us kids much past the age of seven -- in anger or in affection.  I know Mom and Dad loved us. They took good care of us.  But they didn't understand how to be warm, nurturing, positive people.  

   Most of our Christmas wishes were granted, no matter how ridiculous. We pored over the Sears Christmas catalog from the time it arrived and made our wishes known to Mom before Thanksgiving.  Even back in the day when some of us still believed in Santa Claus, we all recognized Mom as his favorite elf and helper.  There were Red Ryder wagons, snow sleds, all kinds of building blocks, and electronic gadgets.  I got many different dolls; most of them had their clothes, heads, arms and legs ripped off by my older brother and sister before sundown on Christmas Day.  One Christmas I asked for and received a guitar which I never learned to play.  My sister got a chemistry set one year.  I think she did two successful experiments with it, stinking up the house before several of its tiny pieces and parts got broken, strewn about or thrown away.  There was little room in our small house for the eight people who lived there with various cats and dogs that came and went as they pleased. There was little privacy and no space where somebody could construct any kind of significant project using the blocks or kits we got.  My brothers all got bb-guns or air rifles when they were nine or ten.  I got a bicycle one year, and it took me several months and mom's repeatedly pushing me down over the hill in our back yard, before I learned to ride it.
    I went to bed crying every Christmas night, certain that my Christmas selfishness would land our family in the poor house.

   Some time during the week between Christmas and the dawning of the new year, the tree was taken down. Decorations disappeared.  The impractical, fancy clothes were placed neatly into the back of the closet. The toys that survived the rough treatment of five rowdy farm kids got shoved aside. And my parents returned to their normal, practical stoicism.

  Gradually the naiveté of childhood wore off.  As a teenager I was less affected by Christmas crazies.  During two of my three Active Army years, I consciously chose to stay in Washington, D.C. for Christmas, allowing some of my colleagues to take leave so that they could be with their families.  I usually made it home for a few days at New Year’s.

    When I got off active duty and could no longer use my military obligations as an excuse to avoid Christmas, I returned to the obligatory family gatherings and exchanging of Christmas gifts.

    In my mid-thirties, I led the charge for my family to stop wasting money and making ourselves crazy on gift-giving for all the siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. We agreed to a token gift exchange, putting names in a hat at Thanksgiving and only having to buy one Christmas gift of modest value for that one person whose name we drew. Of course we all continued to get gifts for Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad gave everybody money. 

     After my Dad died, my brother and sister-in-law moved in with Mom and took care of her, doing what they could to preserve family traditions.

    Christmas Day at Mom’s became something of a revolving door as people dropped by to eat and exchange gifts before moving on to the homes of other family members or friends. 

     When I got married, I doubled my Christmas misery by taking on the holiday traditions of Mark’s family which was even more bound up in negativity, meaningless rituals and empty holiday gestures than my family.

   Mark’s parents constantly bickered and bitched at and about each other.  That was the nature of their relationship.  After a few years, it became so oppressive that I stopped going to any of his family’s get-togethers.  Mark, being the dutiful son, continued to attend without me. 

   The Peters family gatherings terminated in 2002 when both Mark’s parents were moved to a nursing home.

   My memories also trace horror stories about holiday observations at work.

   One year our family support representative decided that we needed to focus the annual Christmas celebration on families and children.  Parents were invited to drop their kids’ names in a hat with a couple gift suggestions.  The adults drew names and shopped for the kids. 

    The twit who organized the event failed to double-check the names of participants against assigned gift-givers. At the party, Santa didn’t have a gift for one little boy.

   The boy's sadness, coupled with the parents’ anger and the overall embarrassment, dampened everybody’s holiday cheer.  We stopped having holiday gift exchanges after that and settled for pot luck lunches or dinner at a nice restaurant where everybody paid for their own meals. 

   My favorite holiday traditions usually dealt with church observances and being among church friends who were easier to be around than family members.

But even church evolved into something that lost its value and meaning for me.  

    I’ve known too many clergy who tried to build up personal kingdoms for their own power and prestige instead of trying to build up humankind for God’s kingdom.  I’ve had too many bad experiences with mean, gossip-mongering fellow parishioners who spread their personal negativity and tried to exercise control in their own petty corners of congregational life. 

    Political correctness and socially liberal doctrine have infiltrated the church.  The sermon at the last Christmas Eve service I attended in 2011 focused on the then trending “Occupy Wall Street” movement.  The pastor tried to draw analogies between Jesus’s birth in a stable and 2011 anarchists living in tents on public property as a protest against rich people. I stopped going to church shortly after that. 

    Sentimentality and emotionalism dominate many contemporary Christian worship services with people holding hands during The Lord’s Prayer or shouting "amen" and "alleluia" as particular parts of the sermon, prayers, songs, and scripture readings move congregants.  None of that appeals to my sense of what Christ intended in his preaching and the example he gave us. 

   In 2016, the Catholic Church, which is supposed to be a bastion of Christianity across the globe, is led by a Marxist pope who demands that the clergy preach against man-made climate change, which is an elaborate man-made hoax designed to extort money from American taxpayers. 

     Mark and I don’t have children.  We decided that we didn't want to pass along the kind of negativity and gloom our parents had instilled in us. 

    I have never regretted that decision.

   My brother has become the de facto head of the Flowers family.  He tries to keep up old traditions by hosting the usual family gatherings. We stopped attending the Flowers family Thanksgiving gathering when it grew to over twenty people, half of whom we don’t know or don't like.  

     I like my brother, but he and I hardly ever communicate any more. Since I stopped participating in the family gatherings, we don't seem to have much in common.  He stays busy parenting his grandchildren.  He and my sister-in-law don’t have any interest in getting together for dinner and quiet adult conversation with just the four of us, which is what Mark and I would prefer. 

 I keep up with my favorite nieces and nephews via Facebook. 

   Mark stays in contact with one of his brothers and his children and grandchildren. 

    Mark's youngest brother has been refusing all communication for over ten years.

    I am happy to acknowledge that Mark and I, being old introverts, currently enjoy hibernating for the holidays, avoiding shopping, family gatherings, church-going, gift-giving and other traditional trappings of the season.  

   That is the Betty report on this “Humbug Day” in 2016.

   Let me leave you with this piece of wisdom and advice:  You don’t have to put on some kind of pretend persona to enter into the proper spirit of the holidays.  Figure out who you really are in the eyes of God, according to your own soul, and be that real person always, regardless of what the calendar says, what tradition dictates or what other people and institutions say you are supposed to be, do, feel and say. 

    If you don't believe in God, then I suggest you grow up and get over yourself, because God believes in you, whether you like it or not.  

   I wish all of you who are reading this the joy that is our true spiritual legacy as Children of God.

   May your holidays be filled with happiness. 

    I pray that we all may find peace and contentment in our lives, regardless of what happens in the world, what the mainstream media reports, what rituals we follow or traditions we observe. 

    In the words of Dickens’ Tiny Tim, “God Bless us, every one.”

Review: Bangin’ The Bell, Eclipse Theatre Company

   Eclipse Theatre Company's “Bangin’ The Bell” focuses on Opal Marie (Danielle Filas) who has just finished “banging” the richest, slickest lawyer in town, resulting in his having a heart attack and dying, as Opal is supposed to be preparing to attend her small Texas town’s annual Christmas party. 

    Soon after Opal realizes her paramour is dead, her friends, Marlene (Molley Collins), Candymine (Krista Threadgill), Rubylee (Meloney Buehl), and Ina Jo (Sabra Miller) arrive to accompany her to the party. 

    The friends scold and mock Opal, gossip about each other and everybody else in town, and debate what to do with the body.

   As they come to a decision and are getting ready to push the body out the front door, Looty Beaver (Kent Halloran) -- the dumbest clown in town – shows up to check on Opal and escort her to the armory to help finish the decorations and start the party. 

   Under the guidance of veteran director Kathy Sturm, the acting and characterizations are uniformly outstanding. Their facial expressions, timing and physicality hold the audience's attention and keep us laughing. I noticed some tripping over lines, but this was opening night, and I suspect the line delivery will tighten with another performance or two. 

    I love Greg Smith’s set design of Opal’s apartment.  It features some excellent artistry –- especially in the painting of the cupboards.

   The costumes are attractive things that all these folks would probably have in their personal wardrobes. 

    On a scale of one-to-ten – ten being a Shakespeare-like piece of prose --  I would give “Bangin’ The Bell” a three. And that may be generous.  

   Some of Author Ted Karber's themes and characters, and the small Texas-town setting, remind me of Jaston Williams’ “Greater Tuna” series that many theater troupes and their audiences have come to enjoy and appreciate.

     Karber creates some fun bits and funny moments, but he repeats himself too many times.      

     Due to excellent directing and acting, the show is well paced. But at an hour and 40 minutes, with the intermission, it is at least twenty minutes too long.

   An extended segment toward the end of Act 1 takes place off stage, causing the audience to become restless and lose interest.  
    The plot twist concerning the lover’s double-dealing and conspiracy with Opal’s mostly absent husband to rob Opal of her inheritance, gets tossed in, lacking the exposition to have it make much sense. 

   Karber also wrote the one-person monolog show, “Precious Heart”, that has been a signature piece for Greg Smith.  Judging from the program annotations, this is a new work for which Eclipse did not have to pay royalties.

   Though the material is shallow, the excellent acting and directing make this worth the price of admission.