Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended ***1/2!

"...Rain falls throughout John Gawlik's honestly directed and shrewdly cast production, which has (or so it seemed from Joe Schermoly's emotional landscape of a set) moved the setting of the play from New York to the soggy streets of ordinary Chicago. At one point during Monday night's opening, an actor's coffee drink sprang an unintended leak, which seemed to fit perfectly, given that it was immediately followed by the intentional effect of water falling through Renee's roof."

"Honestly directed and shrewdly cast. A fine match for the tiny, relentless Gift Theatre of Jefferson Park."  

NewCity Chicago - Recommended

"...Director John Gawlik stages these performances well and also handles pacing nicely. Coming in at a little over two hours, the play feels shorter and remains unencumbered by the heaviness of the subject matter. this is a very well thought out and entertaining production that at the very minimum will make you feel better about your own family."

Gapers Block - Recommended

"...Ross' tightly written script is a smart and sympathetic family story, originally produced by New York's LAByrinth Theater Company and included in the anthology New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2011. Her script benefits from John Gawlik's careful direction in the tiny Gift Theatre performance space. The setting designed by Joe Schermoly makes clever use of a few pieces of furniture, accessorized by rain streaming down the rear windows and occasional scenic projections created by Michael Stanfill."

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"...The Gift's crack ensemble digs in to the volatile, often darkly funny exchanges to great effect; Burch, Thornton and McGough all craft layered, believable characters, and Newton does a nice job with the tough assignment of playing a woman whose bitter anger makes her tough to sympathize with. But Ross's fine scenes don't quite cohere into enough of a driving narrative; we see these family members arrive at a resolve to change direction, but we don't feel like we've been on the journey with them."

Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended

"...In the vein of so many other plays like "Buried Child" and "August: Osage County," Melissa Ross digs up and presents the secrets hidden within a dysfunctional family. Audiences will leave the theatre either feeling as if they've encountered a group of people they deeply know or recognize or be thankful that their own family isn't like this one. Either way, while Ross avoids the requisite happy ending, the journey she provides for each of her characters from despair to contentment is worth every moment of the trip."

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...For two solid hours we watch an unhappy trio of selfish, emotionally stunted adult siblings bicker, bite, and slowly fall apart as their despised father slowly dies of cancer. It's not an easy play to watch—especially on a beautiful spring day—but Ross captures well the downward spiral of three characters who hate themselves almost as much as they despise each other. John Gawlik's direction is inspired, and his ensemble, led by Brittany Burch, Lynda Newton, and Michael Patrick Thornton, astonishes with one virtuoso display after another."

Chicago Sun Times - Recommended

"...The title of Melissa Ross' tragicomedy, "Thinner Than Water," now in a ferociously acted Chicago premiere by The Gift Theatre, riffs on the old adage that "blood is thicker than water." And her play poses these questions: Do family ties, no matter how destructive and painful, invariably trump all other human bonds? And at what point must we let go of the sins of the parents and take responsibility for our own misery or happiness? Under the fearsome direction of John Gawlik, the immensely gifted actors of The Gift convince you that lives CAN change for the better."    

"The cast is exceptional."

-Noel Schecter, NewCity

Jeff Recommended!