Let me be especially personal: As a ceaseless reader and theatergoer for many years, among my favorite things remain the remarkable plays, novels and essays composed by Thornton Wilder. And in recent seasons, I have also become a fan of Ethan Lipton, a drolly imaginative writer-composer-performer of quirky works like No Place to Go and We Are Your Robots. Learning how Lipton had crafted a musical adaptation of Wilder’s wonderfully gonzo ends-of-the-world comedy The Skin of Our Teeth — which Lipton so-perfectly titles as The Seat of Our Pants — my cup nearly runneth over, as it were.
Last weekend I witnessed the premiere of The Seat of Our Pants at The Public Theater, and found the show to be pretty much a dud both as a musical and a production, only sporadically brightened by lively performances. This bums me out so much that it’s difficult to detail much about the misguided production that opened on Thursday, so let’s be brief before salty tears wreck my keyboard.
The biggest surprise — and not a happy one — is how much of the play remains untouched by Lipton’s too-respectful adaptation. Rather than being transformed and heightened into a work of musical theater by Lipton, this is essentially The Skin of Our Teeth cluttered with a batch of so-what songs that cling to the original text like barnacles to a yacht. Jazzy and/or folksy in style, Lipton’s songs are more earnest than enlightening in content. Nor do they provide the drama necessary to color and drive the story’s apocalyptic sequences invoking glaciers, tsunamis and world warfare. Too bad that the plot’s theatrical disaster caused by a moldy lemon meringue pie was Lipton’s significant excision from the original; its urgency and universal aspirations might have given the musical the elevation it lacks here.
Directed with too little flair by Leigh Silverman, the production strives to be meta about these matters (as the play so famously was in 1942), by reworking a bit the 299-seat Newman space. Five rows of seats are now situated upon the far side of the proscenium frame so spectators on both sides can glimpse a quasi-mirror of themselves, while this should-be-madhouse-musical about humanity dithers along on the stage between them. The choreography by Sunny Min-Sook Hitt aspires to look spontaneous and it certainly appears as if nobody has rehearsed it. Scenic designer Lee Jellinek provides little of visual interest upon the open stage, but the many mid-20th century costumes by Kaye Voyce are brightly colored and amusing.
The happiest thing about The Seat of Our Pants, hats off, is a perfectly delightful performance from Ruthie Ann Miles as that mother of all mothers, Mrs. Antrobus. A brisk, reassuring, always neatly-dressed figure, Miles sings warmly and sweetly while suggesting every inch a tiger mom who’d kill any threat to her kids. Like those many wives her character represents, Miles’ performance provides staunch support for Shuler Hensley’s under-powered Mr. Antrobus. A wild-eyed Damon Daunno wanders through the show as their eternal bad boy offspring Henry/Cain, investing him with a genuinely dangerous quality. Flouncing about as ever-opinionated Sabina, Micaela Diamond appears not so much an eternal goddess of love as a temptress in a teapot, but she’s good-spirited company anyway.
It’s quite possible that The Skin of Our Teeth is one of those great works that resist remaking as a musical, so let’s chalk up this attempt as a nice try, but no thanks.
The Seat of Our Pants opened November 13, 2025, at the Public Theater and runs through November 30. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
