‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ review: A set as big as the running time
nypost.comThree hours with two intermissions. At the Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W 65th Street.The set is the real star of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” Thornton Wilder’s geezer of a play that opened Monday night on Broadway.Up at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, designer Adam Rigg’s spectacular scenery for the revival is as mammoth as the woolly mammoth that stomps around the characters’ living room along with an adorable brachiosaurus.
The supersize environs liven up a 1942 comedy that, at over three hours long, can feel rather prehistoric itself.In three sporadically funny acts, Wilder’s Antrobus family glibly lives through the history of the planet — both scientific and biblical: the Mesozoic Era, the Ice Age, the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark and a couple of World Wars.
It’s a comedy for a PhD.Even with a pinky-out “I won a Pulitzer” attitude, the show can be amusing in spots. Lileana Blain-Cruz’s energetic staging is reminiscent of the Marvel miniseries “WandaVision,” in that the same nuclear family of characters — a husband and wife, two kids and a scheming maid — experience different eras in sitcom style.
Each act is prefaced by a “News of the World” TV segment. And the mysterious housekeeper, Sabina (Gabby Beans), is Agatha all along.
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