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The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play (Perennial Classics) Paperback – April 15, 2003
| Thornton Wilder (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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A timeless statement about human foibles...and human endurance, The Skin of Our Teeth is Thornton Wilder’s brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, with an afterword by Wilder’s nephew, Tappan Wilder.
Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.
Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way!); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war—by the skin of their teeth.
Witty, clever, and provocative, The Skin of Our Teeth showcases Wilder’s storytelling genius and his extraordinary talents at delving deep into the human psyche.
- Print length176 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateApril 15, 2003
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.44 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100060088931
- ISBN-13978-0060088934
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About the Author
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly!. He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, the opera, and films. (His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of Doubt [1943] remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day.) Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial Modern Classics; 60113th edition (April 15, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 176 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060088931
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060088934
- Item Weight : 5.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.44 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #307,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #254 in American Dramas & Plays
- #27,975 in Humor & Entertainment (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Thornton Wilder (18971975) is an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, opera, and film. His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psychological thriller to this day. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.
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The play presents us with the perfect American family: father, mother, son, daughter, and a housemaid, all living in middleclass comfort in Excelsior, New Jersey. They dress in modern attire, more or less; they speak in modern terms, more or less; and the world in which they live contains such modern details as telegrams and such. But it is also the middle of the prehistoric ice-age and the glaciers are moving in to crush them all. The end of the world is at hand!
Ice age? Yes indeed, and as the play progresses Thornton Wilder drags the Antrobus family through one clamity after another. From ice to infidelity and from infidelity to Noah's flood--it's one damned thing after another, right up to and including global war. There are so many disasters that the actors playing the roles begin to question the whole thing, arguing with each other about the merits of the play, what it means, whether or not it is worth performing--and then suddenly, to their horror, face their own disaster when a large portion of the cast is rushed to the hospital due to food poisoning! Can the cast finish the performance? Can mankind survive?
In its own time THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH broke so much new theatrical ground that it easily walked off with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: it is highly mannered, extremely theatrical, proto-absurdist, and borrows from such diverse sources as the Bible and James Joyce to create a wildly spinning construct that seems constantly on the verge of flying apart--but never actually does. And it always seems to enjoy a resurgence in popularity whenever the world faces a prolonged period of bad news. Because, as Wilder points out, we've actually done all this before many, many times. And we're still here to tell the tale.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Top reviews from other countries
ich bitte um nachforschung oder sonst die rückgabe des geldes
schade wenn solche dinge passieren



