Two Mile Hollow
Two Mile Hollow, currently in its last week at the Mixed Blood Theater, is just the show that we need right now. This collaboration between Mu Performing Arts and Mixed Blood Theater brings us Leah Nanako Winkler’s brilliantly funny play about the absurdities of a rich white family. In this case the rich white family is all played by Asian American actors. I am afraid that saying any more about the plot would take away the joy I seeing the story unfold.
When I was reflecting on the theater I saw in 2017 in order to reframe the kind if things that I wanted to see in 2018, one of the big conclusions that I came to is that I need to be seeing more comedies. Luckily 2018 has been filled with some great comedies but none has made me laugh quite as much as Two Mile Hollow.
The members of the family played by Eric Sharp, Kathryn Fumie, Sherwin Resurreccion and Sun Mee Chomet are all hilarious. Sun Mee Chomet as the mother however is worth seeing for her performance alone. I am guessing she has less stage time that her fellow actors but she makes every single moment count with every movement and the way she delivers each line. Meghan Kreidler is the last member of the cast. She plays the Asian American assistant to the youngest brother. It is the addition of her character that allows the play to not only be funny, but also be extremely smart as well.
Two Mile Hollow is able to point out the subtle and not so subtle racism that the Asian/Asian American community faces. It is able to highlight harmless assumptions that are made is a way that was funny, but also did not downplay the seriousness. Lastly this comedy was a great study on class both in real life and how it is portrayed in theater.
One of the most important jobs of the theater company is choosing great work to produce and in this case Mixed Blood and Mu Performing arts have done just that. They have picked a fantastically written show by Leah Nanako Winkler, that is able to deliver the laughs that our society needs right now along with highlighting social wrongdoing. Upon this strong foundation director Randy Reyes is able to build a show with top notch performances that both made me think a lot and laugh a lot.
Hurry and see the show before it closed this weekend on March 4th.
You can find more information about the show and how to get tickets by clicking here.
Also check out what my fellow bloggers of Compendium, Cherry and Spoon and One Girl Two Cities thought about the play.
*Photo Credit: Rich Ryan