Chicago Tribune
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The action in "From the Mississippi Delta" takes place in the deep South and Minnesota, but Chicago is name-checked in the opening lines of Endesha Ida Mae Holland's autobiographical play, now running at Lifeline Theatre in a co-production with Pegasus Theatre Chicago. "My region is famous for the infamous 'wolf whistle,'" she says, referring to the incident that led to the 1955 lynching of Black Chicago teen Emmett Till. The white woman whose accusation doomed Till died just last week - a reminder that such brutal events were not so long ago as they may seem."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...The play’s structure means that we move from story to story without a great deal of connective tissue, and sometimes it feels like we could use a bit more interstitial material to ground us in the timeline. But the actors move so smoothly among all the different characters that it’s not too hard to just surrender to the tales. These stories also often move from comic to tragic in moments, but as Holland’s invocation of the murder of Emmett Till early on reminds us, for Black people in the Jim Crow south, danger was a constant shadowy presence."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Recommended
"...This memory play is stuffed to the gills with many incidents from the background of a woman who survived. She overcame so many obstacles, and this play reveals both the serious and the side-splitting aspects of her life. In the end, theatergoers will take with them the portrait of an African-American trailblazer whose accomplishments and rise to prominence are as impressive as they are seemingly impossible. But, after this production, no one will ever forget Miss Ida Mae Holland."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...The play, brilliantly directed by Lifeline Theatre’s Artistic Director ILesa Duncan, includes dozens of characters, all played by the cast of three actors: LaKecia Harris, Arielle Leverett, and Jenise Sheppard, billed in the program as Woman 1, Woman 2, and Woman 3. Harris and Sheppard alternate playing Phelia while Leverett primarily represents her mother, Aunt Baby. Aunt Baby’s artistry as a midwife leads a local (white, male – of course) doctor to call her ‘the second doctor’. The scene in which she rotates and delivers a breech baby left me stunned."
Picture This Post
- Highly Recommended
"...FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA is a tragic, funny, and ultimately heroic story about a Civil Rights legend. Anyone interested in autobiography and American history should attend."
NewCity Chicago
- Recommended
"...Lifeline's funny, poignant, zippy production of "From the Mississippi Delta," Endesha Ida Mae Holland's 1990 play about the writer's lifelong journey from the Jim Crow South, through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and on to a Ph.D. and professorships soars on ILesa Duncan's clever direction and the stunning, virtuosic performances by its three cast members. The trio takes on so many different roles that I lost count."
