The idea that history repeats itself is a tale as old as time, but no play says it more eloquently than the Pulitzer Prize winning play, “The Skin of Our Teeth”, written by Thornton Wilder. The play opened on Broadway back in 1942, but it never lost its flair due to its ability to connect to whatever the world is going through at the time. How is this possible you ask? How did a playwright tap into the exact formula that generations decades later could still connect to? The answer is simple. Not only did he NOT stick to a typical template (unless seeing dinosaurs and wooly mammoths run across the stage is a staple of family centered dramedies that I didn’t know about), but Thornton Wilder wrote the play following the events of Pearl Harbor. By tapping into such a historical moment for the world, the chaos of the story is always rooted in a reality that at any moment, the rug can get pulled out from under us. Even if the rug is a different design or style and was purchased at a different store.

“The Skin of Our Teeth” is the tale of the Antrobus family, as they go through the typical situations of any family, but on more of a heightened scale…such as getting through the Ice Age together, or gathering animals aboard Noah’s ark. As the events of history are recreated for this family to endure, the idea that people can get through tough times because they are tough rings true.