Evening star., 1955-07-19

Lie SOuECc VI ttl1S COLuuuIl
Teeth, y which has came TO the
straight from its Salute toI
France triumph in Paris. :.
It brings with it. this time a.
cast headed by Helen Hayes
Mary Martin, George Abbott and
Florence Reed. It is also blessed
With the directoral fair of Alan
Schneider, the once local boy
who is now Broadway's busiest
and brightest young director.
With these intrinsic assets, the
comedy ohligates the theatergo-
Or to bring only q small dab Of
wonder with him. If, however. :.
he finds himself possessed Of
none, he had better stay home
for "The Skin. Of Our Teeth" Isl
no less a, challenge than ever to|
the conventions Of the theater
at1d the wretched literalness Of
human experience.
Mr. Wilder's, praise Heaven, is
a creative mind and after II
years, "The Skin of Our Teeth"
Is as freshly wanton, mocking,
Humorous and ohliquely flatter-
ing to mankind as when 1t had
its premiere here in 1943. 49,
J. 1t is its authors tribute to the
species that the latter has sur
vived ice ages, floods, wars,
pestilences and, above all, its
own ineptness. 1t is one of the
most amusing epistles of con-
graduation ever written and If
any American play of the Goth
century outlasts it, fate will have
been less just to Mr.. Wilder
than he to his fellow man.
The AntrobuS family of Ex-
celsior, New Jersey. coming down
through 5000 years of catastro-
phe in the three acts of the play,
is patiently in splendid hands in
this production. The Misses
Hayes and Martin. Director
Schneider and the others have
never been so delighted as with
the chance to 60 along on Mr..
Wilder's lark.
No group, not even the orig
incl led so recklesslv by TalIn-
1ah Bankhead and the Fredric
Marches, could telescope history
SO blithely and revealingly.
Thanks to Miss Hayes, there
are two wonder girls now in
"The Skin Of Our Teeth" The
new one is Mrs. Antrobus, the
eternal Eve. played rather as a
shrew by Florence Eldridge but
by Miss Hayes with a kind of
ra diant motherliness; warm,
wise. and not too weary to keep
the family on the onward march.
In this Interpretation. she is
o worthy competitor for Sabina
(Miss Martini, the beautiful,
seductive, brash, irresponsible
female with whom the Adam sex
has whiled away the millenia.
They are both amusing crea-
lures, in their different ways,
and no one is going to catch
a man as wise and admiring
as Mr.. Wilder casting a vote as
between them. 81
Nor. If he is just, will the
theatergoer. He will delight In
Miss Martins Sabina, the most
hoydenish maid that ever upset
the human household, or made
a mockery of the theater's most
chaste and highly priced con-
ventions. She is a servant who
lives with her notice on the tip
OF her tongue. a siren whose
wiles are always in perfect work.
Ing order, and an extravagantly
comic figure.
Nevertheless, she is not a
whit more amusing and con-
siderably less pathetic than
Miss Hayes as the brunt bearer
not merely Of life's calamities
but of Mr.. Antrobus' absurdities.
+ y y X
AS Mr.. Antrobus, head of the
household which keeps surviving
by the skin of its teeth. the
latest production of Wilder's
play offers Mr.. Abbott. Direct
ing has occupied him during the
last couple Of decades, but it
has kept him in touch with the
means by which an actor catches
the nobility and absurdity of
the human male.
1t is an affecting, although
considerably milder, portrait
than that of Fredric March
that Mr.. Abbott makes of the
man who invented the alphabet,
the multiplication table, the
lever and the wheel. He has
acquiesced fully in the inven-
tive concept of Mr.. Antrobus by
Director Schneider, a young man
with a conspicuous affinity for
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