BHS presets 'The Skin of Our Teeth'
Careening from one world-ending apocalypse to the next, surviving, and finding the will to begin again, the Antrobus family endures by “The Skin of Our Teeth.”
Buffalo High School’s spring play portrays humankind’s ongoing flirtations with disaster, and ultimately its resilience.
“It focuses a lot on family, and how a family needs to hold itself together,” said senior Lucas Louwagie, who plays the head of that family, George Antrobus. “These people face so much. Even if they are at each other’s throats, they’re still a family and they’re still holding each other together through everything.”
Three 7 p.m. performances will take place Thursday through Saturday, April 16-18, in the BHS Performing Arts Center.
While Thornton Wilder’s 1942 script combines elements of farce, burlesque, satire and comic-strip humor, wisdom and warnings are infused throughout.
“This show was written long before my time, but when we look at what’s happening today, there are so many parallels,” said Louwagie. “(Humankind) needs to learn from what we’ve seen. We’ve made mistakes in the past. Now we need to make sure we have the memory to learn from them.”
Director Debb Bestland is managing about 30 students, including 18 in the cast and another dozen in the crew.
“It’s all about humanity and the common things we face in every generation: the good, the bad, the frustration, the feeling like the world’s going to come to an end, and then suddenly everything comes alive again,” she said.
Plotline
Wilder’s play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1943, during the heart of World War II. The plot focuses on George and Maggie Antrobus, who along with their children Gladys and Henry represent and personally experience all of human history. Surviving both natural and man-made cataclysms such as ice age, flood and war, these four and their obstreperous maid Sabina somehow endure.
“It’s a little crazy. I’ve never done a show like this,” said Lily Kinches, who plays Maggie Antrobus. “This show is about a family who can get through hard times. In each act we have one significant thing we are going through, and we come out winning at the end of each one.”
George and Maggie bear a resemblance to the first couple, Adam and Eve, and their experiences across thousands of years of history provide ample opportunity to comment on the human condition through humor.
“It’s absurd, but it’s meant to reflect reality within that absurdity,” said junior Kaylee Anderson, who plays a fortune teller that is largely ignored despite the accuracy of her predictions. “Without a certain amount of absurdity it doesn’t send the same message, so we want to find that balance where it’s goofy, but people can take something away from it too.”
Mixed cast
BHS theater fans will recognize talented actors who have played prominent roles in recent productions, but will also meet new faces who are taking the high school stage for the first time.
“There are a lot of freshmen and people who haven’t done theatre yet in this show,” said Anderson, crediting the new 9-10 musical with helping younger students get involved. “So it’s fun to try to pass my knowledge down them and give them the same great experience that I had as a freshman.”
On the other end of the spectrum, seniors like Louwagie are preparing for their final show after a long career on the BHS stage.
“It’s a little bittersweet because it’s my last, so I'm just enjoying the final process of it, kind of taking everything a little bit slower than I usually would and trying to take it all in,” he said.
Lighter approach to heavy themes
Of all the plays he has been in, Louwagie said the humorous and at times ridiculous nature of this show has been particularly enjoyable.
“This is probably the most comedy I’ve done in a show, and that’s really been fun because it’s kind of new to compare to all the dramas we’ve ended up doing with our one-acts and the musicals,” he said.
Bestland said that change of pace was an intentional choice to give students variety in the wake of recent shows with heavier themes, including this winter’s state-starred One Act performance, “The Women of Lockerbie.”
“I felt the students needed a break from something as intense and emotionally exhausting as the last few productions have been,” she said.
The lone actor responsible for maintaining a more serious approach is Kinches, who has thrived in similarly difficult and emotional roles in the past.
“I’m supposed to be the more serious one in the show, which is definitely a little bit harder because everyone else gets to say all the comedic lines and I say all the serious ones,” she said. “But I’ve learned from past roles how to really enjoy that and be comfortable with that.”
Throughout all of the changes the characters experience, one constant is the attempt to find, maintain and restore “home,” in relationships as well as a physical sense.
“My character is the one who has to think about where we’re going next, and home is always that place,” said Kinches. “It’s the place where you find comfort in those around you throughout all the hard times.”
* Tickets are available online by clicking the desired date on the activities calendar at www.bhmschools.org.
