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Originally written for Broadway World.com

Continuing this year's exploration of American drama, Sydney Theatre Company presents the iconic Our Town, Thornton Wilder's 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning play. One of the most widely produced plays in the United States, yet rarely seen in Australia, the heart-warming classic makes an affecting philosophical case for relishing life in the here and now as it chronicles the lives of two close-knit families living next door to each other. This new production, directed by Iain Sinclair, is at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, from 14 September 2010, opening 18 September.

Guided by the 'stage manager' (Darren Gilshenan), the audience is introduced to the inhabitants of a small, sleepy American town, Grover's Corners, absorbed in the domesticity of daily life in 1901. The touchstones of everyday life are tenderly revealed, particularly through the story of Emily Webb (Maeve Dermody) and George Gibbs (Robin Goldsworthy) as they grow up, fall in love, marry and start a family.

Interweaving the present, the past and the future across 13 years, as stories evolve and The Shadows of mortality encroach, it becomes clear how extraordinary even the most ordinary of lives can be.

According to the theatre's website, Sydney Theatre Company, as the premier theatre company in Australia, has been a major force in Australian drama since its establishment in 1978. The Company presents an annual twelve-play program at its home base The Wharf, on Sydney's harbour at Walsh Bay, the nearby Sydney Theatre, which STC also manages, and as the resident theatre company of the Sydney Opera House. Current Artistic Directors, Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton joined the Company at the beginning of 2008.

Director Iain Sinclair, who has worked as Assistant Director on Sydney Theatre Company's Festen, Blackbird and The Convict's Opera, brings together some of Australia's finest stage actors for his mainstage debut for the Company. Alongside Gilshenan, Dermody and Goldsworthy, the large cast also includes Anita Hegh, Susan Prior, Christopher Stollery and Frank Whitten, as well as Foley Artist Steve Toulmin.

Director: Iain Sinclair. Set Design: Pip Runciman. Costume Designer: Jennifer Irwin. Composer & Sound Designer: Paul Charlier.
With: Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke, Ashleigh Cummings, Maeve Dermody, Darren Gilshenan, Robin Goldsworthy, Anita Hegh, Russell Kiefel, Michael Kilbane, Chris Pitman, Susan Prior, Toni Scanlan, Christopher Stollery, Josh Quong Tart, Steve Toulmin, Frank Whitten

For more details, please visit www.sydneytheatre.com.

"...Or wait til I'm dead: they say it's really possible to find a unified theme in an author when he's stopped writing (dead or senile)."

--Thornton Wilder to George F. Edmonds, April 14, 1972

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) received three Pulitzer Prizes - for The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. His plays today are collectively produced at least twice every day of the year; but his novels, although all in print, have attracted far less attention. On the occasion of the landmark publication by the Library of America of Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels 1926-1948, scholars in classics and American literature, journalists, biographers, and family members participate in a one-day program of lectures, panels, interviews, and readings that will try to place Wilder's fiction in American literary history and culture.

Participating in the Wilder Colloquium will be:

Jackson R. Bryer - Co-editor of The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder
Michael Dirda - Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post book critic
Judith P. Hallett - Professor of Classics, University of Maryland
Jeremy McCarter - Senior Writer for Arts, Culture and Entertainment, Newsweek
J. D. McClatchy - Editor of the Library of America volume
Penelope Niven - Author of a forthcoming biography of Wilder
Kurt Raaflaub - Professor Emeritus of Classics, Brown University
Martha Nell Smith - Professor of English, University of Maryland
Cecelia Tichi - William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English, Vanderbilt University
Christopher Wheatley - Professor of English, Catholic University of America
Tappan Wilder -Thornton Wilder's nephew and Literary Executor

Sponsored by the Departments of English and Classics and the Center for
Literary and Comparative Studies of the University of Maryland, College Park;
the Classical Association of the Atlantic States; and the Thornton Wilder Society

For more information, contact, Judith P. Hallett at jeph@umd.edu .

At The Artistic Home, ChicagoThe Skin of Our Teeth
By Thornton Wilder

Directed by Jeff Christian

"That's all we do--always beginning again! Over and over again. Always beginning again."

"Don't forget that a few years ago we came through the depression by the skin of our teeth! One more tight squeeze like that and where will we be?" -Sabrina

The Artistic Home, under Jeff Christian's smart staging, has another ambitious American classic well in hand. The Skin of Our Teeth is a tough play to mount as it is complex and a tad unyielding. Innovative staging, a quick pace as well as strong actors equally at ease with comedy as well as drama are required to have a chance to do Wilder's biting satire justice. I'm happy to report that Christian and the cast at The Artistic Home have mounted a most spirited and worthy production.

Wilder's 1942 Pulitzer Prize winner is an ageless and amazingly inventive portrayal of the human condition. It is a cautionary tale that stylistically and theatrically presents a capsule look at the history of man from the ice age through the Jazz age of the 1920's to the culmination of a sever year war.

With an ode to Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, Thornton Wilder breaks with many theatrical conventions including having the stage manager stop the play to make announcements to Sabrina (Maria Stephens) going off script to directly address the audience. Wilder names his family the 'Antrobus' meaning human or person in Greek. The son, Henry (Nick Horast) changed his name from Cain after murdering his brother Able. Biblical references and archetypes populate Wilder's drama. Smart use of video 'news clips' enhances the work.

Satirical humor, a woolly mammoth and a dinosaur are present as Act One (of three acts spread over 2 hours, 40 minutes) as the maid, Sabina narrates and sets-up the inventive story concerning the Antrobus family. George Antrobus (John Mossman) is the learned Adam figure while Maggie Antrobus (Kathy Scambiatterra) is the Eve persona. They are on the brink of the ice age followed by the great flood and ending just after a seven year war.

The satire reeks much humor as the manic pace keeps the work fresh. Through the Antrobus family and their maid (terrific work from Maria Stephens), Wilder depicts the progression of humanity as it teeters on the brink of disaster. These is high emotion, wild comedy filled with hopefulness as it swings from the life cycle of basic existence to survival and triumph as humans prove their resilience and will to survive.

The ensemble work here is first-class and the real life husband and wife team of John Mossman and Kathy Scambiatterra anchor the work with their steadfast and truthful performances as the Antrobus parents. See this show and appreciate both Thornton Wilder's provocative work and the Artistic Home's high production values.

Highly Recommended

Tom Williams

Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast

Date Reviewed: February 9, 2010

This review also posted on www.mytheatreclub.com/articles.php

At The Artistic Home, 3914 N. Clark, Chicago, IL, call 866-811-4111, www.theartistichome.org, Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays & Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, running time is 2 hours, 40 minutes with 2 intermissions, through March 21, 2010