THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH Reviews

NYT Critic's Pick from Alexis Soloski:

Thornton Wilder’s antic play, from 1942, packs in an ice age, a deluge and midcentury décor. This Lincoln Center production is the maximalist revival it deserves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/theater/skin-of-our-teeth-review-lincoln-center.html?

Variety:

‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ Review: Thornton Wilder’s Beautifully Decorated Disaster on Broadway

https://variety.com/2022/legit/reviews/the-skin-of-our-teeth-review-broadway-1235240292/

Daily Beast:

‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ Is Crazy, Deep, and Stars Broadway’s Coolest Dinosaur

Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer-winning ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ spans 5,000 years, including an ice age, dinosaurs, and war. Its odd mischief still sparkles in a Lincoln Center revival.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-skin-of-our-teeth-is-crazy-deep-and-stars-broadways-coolest-dinosaur

NY Daily News is negative:

Theater Review: Lincoln Center’s ‘Skin of Our Teeth’ will be impenetrable for many

https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/broadway/ny-broadway-review-skin-of-out-teeth-proves-impenetrable-20220426-yz25o4bntjbx5mfnyomvag7deu-story.html

"The peaks were high enough to woo the critics of 1942 and win a Pulitzer Prize. The chasms are long enough to send the ordinary viewer spiraling into confusion interrupted only by soul-crushing boredom. “The Skin of Our Teeth” is such a difficult play to make work, it makes “Macbeth” look like a walk through the heather.

2.5 out of 4 from Oleksinski:

https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/the-skin-of-our-teeth-review-a-set-as-big-as-the-running-time/

it's now 8 Positive/1 Mixed/ 2 Negative! Really happy to see this show be received well by the reviewers!

3/5 from Time Out. This IS the production currently running on Broadway:

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/skin-of-our-teeth-review-broadway-revival-thornton-wilder

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems to me that Oleksinski attributes some of Wilder's words to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins in his review:

"This staging tries to add in some modern meaning with new text. The excellent playwright Branden Jacobs Jenkins contributed material for Beans, who occasionally breaks character as Sabina to speak as herself.

'I hate this play and every word in it,' Beans says in Act 1. 'I don’t understand a single word of it, anyway. All about the troubles the human race has gone through. There’s a subject for you.'

That’s funny commentary. But is it wise, with three hours still to go, to acknowledge that audiences famously don’t care much for this show? I’m not convinced. There are always two choices: Do the play or don’t do it. Save the essays for the program."

The lines he quotes are included in Wilder's original script, and, from what I recall, the contributions from Jacobs-Jenkins in this production were relatively minimal. It seems odd to spend a sizable chunk of his review criticizing LCT for not "do[ing] the play," when that's pretty much exactly what they did - and in a way that makes the text feel so fresh, it's seemingly confused some critics into thinking it's been heavily updated by a contemporary playwright.

Oleksinski is horrible. And here is proof that he just doesn't know what he's talking about (and yet is so sure of himself, he is trying to pit himself as an expert of the play despite clearly having no knowledge of it). His thoughts on For Colored Girls were fairly problematic. But now he just makes himself look silly and uninformed to the rest of the theater world. I guess that's your comeuppance Johnny!

Why?

Very Happy with the reception, hoping to Tony noms in the future and better ticket Sales!

jkcohen626 said: "Why?"

The review indicated that someone working front of house asked the reviewer is she was planning to leave early.