Review by James Wilkinson

‘Two Mile Hollow’ – Written by Leah Nanako Winkler. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Stage Manager/Choreographer Robin Mackey. Scenic Design: Nathan K. Lee. Costume Design: Susan Paino. Sound Design: David Reiffel. Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company at Chelsea Theatre Works December 21, 2018-January 20, 2019.

The family patriarch is dead. In life, we’re told, he was a great man, but now he’s gone. The only physical likeness that we’ll get of him are the photographs that hang on the walls of the family homestead. His descendants and widow have descended upon the home to divide his possessions between them. In the process of gathering these family members together, secrets are revealed, passions erupt and long-held grudges bubble to the surface. If this sounds familiar, it should. American playwrights from Eugene O’Neil, Tennessee Williams, Horton Foote, Sam Shepard, Tracy Letts and others have all been riffing on this general scenario in one form or another since the dawn of twentieth-century theatre. The gathering of disparate family members has become one of those boilerplate situations playwrights keep offering their own take on. It’s done partly because the scenario is perfectly designed for generating conflict, but it makes you wonder, what do audiences get out of it? Perhaps watching the explosions on stage confirm for us a sense of dread that’s felt if you get enough of your family members gathered in the same room, the feeling that this whole thing could go to hell at any moment.