As Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Thornton Wilder once explained,  “The Skin of Our Teeth is the destiny of the whole human group seen from a telescope 11,000 miles away."  Over the course of this play, Wilder's vision moves the audience through geological, biblical, and modern times, starting with the arrival of the Ice Age, progressing to biblical times and the Great Flood, then modern times with a convention of American businessmen in Atlantic City and, lastly, the aftermath of war.
     As today's audience sits in the Sophia Gordon Center for the Performing Arts with masks, social distancing, and vaccination requirements in place, it is difficult to ignore Wilder's profound and portentous insight into the circularity of time and the power of human beings to overcome adversity.  First performed in 1942 shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and on the brink of America’s entry into World War II, Wilder sought to infuse the "comic spirit" into the grave challenges faced by the American people in a time of high anxiety.
     The Skin of Our Teeth, in keeping with Wilder's desire for telescopic view of human kind, presents as an allegory.   The wheel is a central motif and metaphor that drives Wilder's vision, representing the human capacity for invention and circularity of life and time.  In each scene, the Antrobus's take a circular path through life, facing one crisis after the next, and somehow finding a way to prevail and return for another challenge.  Characters represent archetypes that reflect societal understanding and expectations for individual behavior:  the husband and father, the long suffering and devoted wife, the temptress, the perfect child, and the rebel.  The last name Antrobus is loosely modified from the Greek word for human, "Anthropos."
     Mr. George Antrobus represents Adam, the original man and father of humankind.  George embodies traditional authority, learning, and invention.  He is everyman and yet also heroic in his efforts to lead.  His role has also been compared to Noah in the Bible because he recreates civilization multiple times in the play, similar to Noah's act of preserving and recreating the world through the Great Flood.
     Mrs. Antrobus represents Eve, the original woman.  She is the nurturer and protector of marriage.  Maggie remains patient in the face of her husband's infidelity and literally keeps the home fires burning throughout the play.  She is the moral voice for her children, scolding Gladys to act like a lady and attempting to protect Henry from his childhood transgressions.
     Henry Antrobus fulfills the rebel or outlaw stereotype.  He is a foil to his perfect sister, Gladys.  Originally named Cain, Henry's actions mirror the biblical story of Cain and Abel.  Cain was jealous of his brother Abel, killed him, and tried to hide his sin from God.  Henry is portrayed as a disobedient and violent outsider; these qualities increase throughout the play.  He has killed his brother and wears the mark of Cain on his forehead.  Gladys is afraid Henry will harm a neighbor.  Henry's status as an outsider within his own family grows over the course of the play and culminates in fighting on the opposite side of the war from his father.
     Gladys represents the innocent child archetype in contrast to her brother, Henry, whose guilt is forever marked on his forehead.  Gladys is eager to please her parents and strives to be the perfect student at school.  She lifts her father's spirits and strives to make him proud.  While she begins the play as a naive rule follower, she is corrupted by the world around her and punished for wearing red stockings and lipstick.  Gladys has also been described as an archetype for traditional women's roles when she appears with the baby in the third act, demonstrating her responsibility to procreate and perpetuate the human race.
     While Wilder’s play has earned acclaim for its wide lens on the challenges of humanity, in watching the play, it is also impossible to miss the more intimate view he provides on the challenges of the nuclear family.  Mr. Antrobus is a successful inventor and political leader whose wife must cope with his time in public service as well as his infidelity.  As a child, Gladys seeks to impress her father with her perfect grades and recitation of Longfellow poetry yet later has a child out of wedlock.  Henry, in a literal sense, is the rebellious, murderous child, who forces his parents to confront the loss of Abel and the heartbreak of raising Cain.
     Almost eighty years after its first performance, The Skin of our Teeth's focus on rising above adversity still resonates. Despite life threatening challenges, the Antrobus family demonstrates that human resilience and ingenuity lives on.