We've Come Through It Again: The Skin of Our Teeth, the Myth of Sisyphus, and Thornton Wilder's American Existentialism

• Published in: New England theatre journal 2022-01, Vol.33, p.77-106
• Main Authors: Russell, Susan, Gimbel, Steven, Gaffney, Jennifer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Brecht, Bertolt (1898-1956); Existentialism; Experimental theater; German literature; Humor; Meaning; Mythology; Philosophy; Theater; Wilder, Thornton (1897-1975)
• ISSN: 1050-9720

Like Shaw, Wilder made humor a vector of serious discourse, but unlike Shaw, mainly reliant on realism, Wilder repurposed innovative techniques of European experimental theatre-especially those of Pirandello, Erwin Piscator and Brecht-to present a uniquely American version of existentialism in his play The Skin of Our Teeth. Since he is a canonical figure of the American theatre, it is common and correct practice to make meaning of the works of Thornton Wilder through the lenses of American ideas. Wilder and existentialism are "rarely mentioned in the same breath," but both he himself and scholars have identified existentialist themes in some of his work.3 For example, Wilder's novel The Ides of March might qualify as "existentialist," Paul Lifton argues (though he excludes Our Town because of its "religiosity:")4 As evidence, Lifton and others quote Caesar: "Life has no meaning save that which we confer upon it," and "How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and the rules whereby he lives." An explicit comparison of Camus' canonical The Myth of Sisyphus and Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth will reveal Wilder's brand of existentialism as distinct from its European forebears.5 Both works were published in 1942 and address the central existential questions: "Why do we exist?", "How can we lead authentic lives?" and "How can we choose to act in a way that endows human life with meaning and dignity?" Finally, both employ mythology as a plowshare to turn over existentialism's ground, exhuming human experience to propose answers to these perpetual questions. Whether in the guise of an all perfect Creator God or a well-ordered universe following inviolable natural laws, existentialists discard the presumption that there is a grand order and the individual is a cog in the universal machine.