Two Mile Hollow presented by First Floor Theater at The Den Theatre

Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended

"...And unrelentingly hilarious. This isn’t subtle stuff — but it’s also so perfectly dissected and performed with such fearless commitment that the overly broad moments in director Hutch Pimentel’s staging don’t detract from our awareness of just how on-target Winkler is. The winking references to everything from Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County” (sharp-tongued Blythe shares Violet Weston’s love of pills) to “Downton Abbey” show us that Winkler, like a good dramatic anthropologist, has studied the culture and ways of this overrepresented demographic well. (She also tosses in references to recent controversies about racial representation in Chicago theater.)"

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...What raises Winkler's play above mere parody is that it manages to mock its overprivileged protagonists while simultaneously honoring the truth of their grievances. Arnel Sancianco's multilevel design serves to underscore the many levels on which this memorable piece functions, though it might've benefited from an in-the-round configuration as some speech is lost when actors are in the stage's farthest reaches. The dialogue is so peppered with references to everything from Anton Chekhov to pop star Drake that multiple viewings are recommended to take it all in."

Windy City Times - Recommended

"...Hutch Pimentel and his cast embrace their satirical subtext with unswerving conviction. Winkler's diatribe could have made its case in under its current 105 intermissionless minutes, but there is no denying the fresh light her observations shine on a sociological profile long overdue for examination."

Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...Charlotte is horrified by the Donnellys’ distinctive mix of privilege and self-pity, a cocktail that nonetheless holds a certain allure. And when Joshua punctures her dreams that her position with Christopher will help her climb the Hollywood ladder (“Once you’re introduced to people as ‘the help,’ that’s all you’ll ever be to them”), Charlotte has to quickly reassess her life choices. This is not so easy a task to accomplish when surrounded by Chekhov’s inbred, mutant offspring—a connection the play makes quite explicit by having characters quote The Seagull and then start sqwawking like the depraved scavengers that those seagulls actually are. They’re not metaphors. They’re pests."

NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...In the theater, we are accustomed to seeing self-flagellating whiteness performed by, well, white people. The explicit genius of “Two Mile Hollow” is that the actors playing the lily-white Donnellys are not. What begins as a sketch-like conceit with a tone of well-observed satiric melodrama becomes as layered and full of depth as Arnel Sancianco’s brilliant set, a richly dissected layer cake of crumbling confidence and lagging legacy. Replete with fourth wall breaks as well as song-and-dance numbers, “Two Mile Hollow” constructs an absurdist world that, like an ouroboros, is nourished by the utter insanity of our own."