Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...I don’t know what rights issues might have been solved here, but there’s no question that Holiday’s music is insufficiently present. There are so many ways, both dramaturgical and technological, in which Holiday’s music and biography could be better worked into a show that could and should be a tribute to the relationship between a great artist and fans from across the water who understood what those nearer home often failed to see."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...From that biographical snippet, Orlandersmith -- a skilled storyteller with a vivid writing style -- invents Helene, a woman from Denmark who spins a sweet and bitter tale about love and loss and the power of music to amplify our best moments and sustain us during our worst."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Orlandersmith explores and grapples with the themes of Holiday's music entirely through the lens and life of one of her fans. It's a thoughtful twist on the typical chronological, paint-by-numbers biographical format, and it treats the contributions artists bring to the world as immortal gifts that continue to resonate and communicate long after their creator has passed."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...As archeologists postulate entire civilizations on a minimum of physical evidence, so has Orlandersmith fabricated a fascinating ( if still in need of some tightening ) backstory, replete with wry humor and unflinching candor transcending racial boundaries. The only structural flaw in the text at its premiere is Helene's too-frequent bouts of melancholy over her recent loss. A woman who lives as fiercely as the one we have met deserves a better takeaway than a lingering farewell by a hospital bed and prognostications of a joyless future."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Helene continues to confide rambling information about those close to her, like her “ingrate” daughter-in-law Ingrid whose existence thoroughly displeases the usually complacent matron. Occasionally interesting, this hearsay stuff would mean much more if it weren’t second hand and if it led somewhere."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Recommended
"...Lady In Denmark is rich with love, lost and history. We liked the audio and video of Holiday; which made us want more. More of the relationship of two Strange Fruits coming together during a time when the world and Billie and Helene lives were falling apart."
WTTW - Somewhat Recommended
"...Gehringer, directed by Chay Yew, brings all her vocal and physical skills to the table in an expertly measured and varied performance of grace and emotional truth that taps into both Helene’s girlish enthusiasms and her adult truths. And set designer Andrew Boyce’s detailed interior, full of books, plants and artwork, gives a fine sense of her decades of life in Chicago. But “Lady in Denmark” ultimately feels more like the audio book of a sensitively written novella. It is, quite simply, in desperate need of that other Lady’s voice."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...Chay Lew’s production of Dael Orlandersmith’s new work is compassionately directed. The play’s comprised of a series of recollections by a strong woman, a parallel to another strong woman from the music world. Helene is beautifully played by Linda Gehringer. She portrays a survivor who’s now alone with her memories. Her empty house, beautifully designed in minute detail by Andrew Boyce, and nostalgically lit by Lee Fiskness, is filled with the music of Billie Holiday, in a fine sound design by Mikhail Fiksel. The play is haunted by the ghosts of so many friends and members of her family, but it’s Helene’s determination to never forget her past and live in the present, that forms the message for all of us."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...Gehringer performs this show as many as eight times a week, an exhausting physical and emotional feat. And yet we watch as though Helene was informally confiding in us just this one time. The only assistance she gets is a few blurry projections of Billie Holiday and some scratchy vinyl recordings of Holiday’s hits. The Lady of the title may be Holiday but the heroine of the evening is Helene, eloquently sharing her life with us for an intimate and believable hour and a half."
Chicago Theater and Arts - Recommended
"...It does partially retell Holiday’s interaction with a family in Denmark, the inspiration for “Lady in Denmark.” But with Gehringer’s heartfelt portrayal under Chay Yew’s direction, what the play does in its brief 90 minutes is to remind people that “rape lasts a lifetime” and that trying to get through loss “doesn’t get better.”"
Chicago On Stage - Somewhat Recommended
"...You may well enjoy Lady in Denmark quite a bit, and there is a whole lot to like in it. I just ended up wishing that a bit more attention had been paid to the second star of the show, and that we had been able to live more in Helene's beloved music with her."
Picture This Post - Recommended
"...LADY IN DENMARK is a reflective trip down into this woman’s life history. It is rich with both happy and life affirming moments, as well as grounding moments of pain and heartbreak. This show would be a good fit for jazz lovers and those who are a fan of one-person, memory shows. It might not be the best fit for those looking for a more action driven play."
Splash Magazine - Recommended
"...The story is told- as their lives were lived- through the prism of Billie Holiday’s unlikely yet devotedly remembered interaction with Helene’s family in Denmark, and Helene and Lars’ lifelong devotion to that music. Set to the soft soundtrack of that sultry crooning, amid projected images of the heroin-addicted icon, Orlandersmith and Gehringer play out a life looked back from less than a month after the death of Lars, on what would have been his 80th birthday. Gehringer’s performance is nuanced, thoughtful, seemingly spontaneous; you can feel the longing, the rue, the exuberance- and the Danish accent is subtle and very effective."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The fine acting, sound direction and technical excellence—Lee Fiskness’ subtly mood-reflecting lighting is particularly praiseworthy—add up to an experience that’s outwardly impressive but inwardly thin. Billie Holiday, who died a junkie’s death at the age of forty-four in 1959, turned the universal human experience of suffering into vibrantly soulful art that somehow manages to be both gritty and romantic. She still has much to teach us. “Lady in Denmark,” which reaches for uplift without having anything genuinely personal or interesting to say, and which hasn’t a single risky or unexpected moment, does not."
