Play explores two time,space frames 
Hélene Bielak
Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: TruLife
Complex but fun. Moral but off-the-wall. This begins to describe the atmosphere of "Skin Of Our Teeth." The Truman Theater Department will perform the 1942 Thornton Wilder play at 8 p.m. tonight through Saturday, free admission, in the James G. Severens Theater in Ophelia Parish.
The play takes place in both 1942 and the Ice Age. George and Maggie Antrobus are living peacefully in New Jersey with their two perfect kids: Henry, who was originally called Cain, and Gladys, who is overprotected by her mother. The family employs a sexy and provocative maid, Sabina.
As Mr. Antrobus is inventing things such as the lever, the wheel and the alphabet, his family is threatened with extinction by an ice wall moving southward from Canada. Because the Antrobuses' house is the only remaining house with a fire, refugees arrive from everywhere. Professors, musicians, neighbors, a monk, a dinosaur and a mammoth are gathered in the Antrobuses' living room, for better or for worse.
All these characters cross time and space frontiers. Each act of the play finishes or begins with a catastrophe: Snowstorm, rainstorm and war, to name a few.
The "play within a play" is also a theme of "Skin Of Our Teeth" - Junior Sarah Hitzel, who is playing Sabina, is not only analyzing her character, but she is also analyzing her role as an actress. Thus, at several times during the play, Hitzel stops the performance to talk to a fictitious stage manager to complain that she still does not understand the play in which she is performing.
The play takes place in both 1942 and the Ice Age. George and Maggie Antrobus are living peacefully in New Jersey with their two perfect kids: Henry, who was originally called Cain, and Gladys, who is overprotected by her mother. The family employs a sexy and provocative maid, Sabina.
As Mr. Antrobus is inventing things such as the lever, the wheel and the alphabet, his family is threatened with extinction by an ice wall moving southward from Canada. Because the Antrobuses' house is the only remaining house with a fire, refugees arrive from everywhere. Professors, musicians, neighbors, a monk, a dinosaur and a mammoth are gathered in the Antrobuses' living room, for better or for worse.
All these characters cross time and space frontiers. Each act of the play finishes or begins with a catastrophe: Snowstorm, rainstorm and war, to name a few.
The "play within a play" is also a theme of "Skin Of Our Teeth" - Junior Sarah Hitzel, who is playing Sabina, is not only analyzing her character, but she is also analyzing her role as an actress. Thus, at several times during the play, Hitzel stops the performance to talk to a fictitious stage manager to complain that she still does not understand the play in which she is performing.
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