STAGE REVIEW : ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ Still Retains Its Bite

Just as East-West tensions ease, here comes global warming. Cracks in the ozone layer. AIDS. More war in the Middle East.

None of it would surprise Thornton Wilder. In his “The Skin of Our Teeth,” the Antrobus family faces an Ice Age, then a great flood, then a devastating war. On another, Pirandellian level, the play itself is in danger--from a character who balks at certain lines, from a backstage outbreak of food poisoning.

Nevertheless, humanity survives. And the play does even better--it thrives, nearly 50 years after it was written. Two-thirds of it, at least.

The first two acts of Todd Nielsen’s revival at the Colony’s Studio Theatre Playhouse are a funny, eye-popping cartoon, with surprising bite. This “Skin of Our Teeth” puts its teeth under our skin.

It’s a miracle that these Antrobuses survive. Mr. Antrobus (Robert O’Reilly) is a wall-eyed fellow with a look that alternates between lunacy and lethargy. This is someone who invented the wheel and the multiplication tables? And then was elected president of the mammals? He hardly inspires great confidence, but then few of our leaders do.

This Mrs. Antrobus (Judith Heinz) has the look of a ‘50s sitcom wife/mom whose problems are somewhat more severe than Donna Reed’s or Harriet Nelson’s. Note the tense muscles surrounding that smile. Heinz’s husky voice anchors the character and helps establish her strength.

Lindy Nisbet has a gloriously twittering voice as the maid Sabina. She also pouts perfectly and seduces with high comic style, abetted by Karen Weller’s ruby-red second-act outfits.

The Antrobus kids (Ceptembre Anthony, Kent Stoddard) are no sluggards in the pouting department either. Never before had I realized how young Gladys is such a parody of young Emily from Wilder’s “Our Town.” And Stoddard’s Henry is a snarling prototype of sullen youth.

Despite its cheery colors, the skeletal frame of the Antrobus home, designed by Kenton Jones and lit by Jamie McAllister, threatens to collapse at every passing breeze. And much more than a passing breeze is apparent here; Jones designed a wall of white fabric “ice” that gradually creeps forward during the first act, stranding the Antrobuses at the front of the stage. During Act II, the flood is represented in similar comic-strip style.

All that scenery requires long set changes during the two intermissions, but the action continues with bits of comic business from extras, in the lobby and even on the sidewalk outside the theater. And Vince Acosta’s sound design punctuates the action with a series of whiz-bang effects, executed by the onstage Debra J. Rogers.

There’s only one problem with director Nielsen’s broad approach: the third act. The final optimism is problematic enough in Wilder’s script, but it seems especially unwarranted when the Antrobuses are presented as such extreme boobs and bunglers earlier in the play. Not that the actors can be faulted; O’Reilly in particular assumes a straight face and approaches Act III as the chastened soul-searcher that Mr. Antrobus has become.

The production remains inventive throughout. A few of the gags seem gratuitous, but it’s a treat to see such an elaborately clever production in a small theater during the post-Waiver Age.

At 1944 Riverside Drive, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., through Sept. 23. $15-$18; (213) 665-3011.