Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Sharr White's excellent play "The Other Place," which I first saw in New York in a 2011 production that starred Laurie Metcalf, opened Thursday at Profiles Theatre. It is also about early onset dementia, an increasingly worrying issue. But the central character in White's play - an academic turned drug-company pitchwoman named Juliana - does not come to terms with her situation at all - or not, at least, until this play, which stars Lia Mortensen, has run you through the emotional ringer."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"..."The Other Place," directed with a sure hand by Joe Jahraus, starts off feeling like a sexy contemporary gothic thriller. And perhaps that's just the right genre to capture both the feelings of a person experiencing the profound mental and emotional shifts that dementia brings, and those of the onlookers who sense something is wrong in a person they know intimately, yet are unable to connect all the dots. It is a chilling experience for everyone involved."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...The Other Place feels like a departure for the Profiles folks, who built their excellent reputation in large part on harsher, more chaotic works. Maybe they're trying to mellow toward the mainstream. If so, they've only half succeeded here. Elements like a second-act house interior, created by set designer Keenan Minogue, show sophistication. But the long white sheets that hide it during the first act look arbitrary enough that they spoil any good effect."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Director Joe Jahraus dramatically reveals "the other place" by having large sheets of gauzy fabrics by set designer Keenan Minogue ( which mostly as a background for Smooch Medina's projection designs ) collapse to the floor in the dramatically illuminating scenes about Julianna's troubled past and present. Jahraus certainly pushes his actors through an emotional wringer, especially Mortensen as Julianna and later Silver as Ian, who turns out to be more resilient than expected."
Edge - Highly Recommended
"...In the Chicago premiere of "The Other Place" by Sharr White, Profiles Theatre brings an excellent production that unblinkingly examines one woman's struggle with a mysterious health crisis that threatens to change her ability to discern reality from fiction, even as her reality fills with the collateral damage of her broken relationships."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...That potency springs from a prismatic collection of light: from the playwright and director as well as the two actors, but also and not least from the intercession of a new character — a young woman with her own ordinary issues but who nonetheless pauses, in the splendid portrayal by Autumn Teague, to embrace a stranger desperate for the milk of human kindness. It brings an epiphany that is wholly credible; more than that, even in the face of a dark certainty, it is exhilarating."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Working in a storefront space, director Joe Jahraus has created an intimate production with the actors very close to the audience for the first act. Later we see the house, realistically designed by Keenan Minogue, creating physical distance but retaining psychological connection. The story of Julianna’s descent never loses its possibility for hope, but is a wrenching experience. Sharr’s script presents an unusually complicated back story for his heroine to get lost in, but provides excellent material for Mortensen’s performance. This play is an ideal challenge for actors, and prospective audience members would do well to share in the reward."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...At the halfway point, “The Other Place” finally reveals its secrets, and it takes an extended foray into the past that elaborates upon one of Julianna’s present-day confusions. It’s sensical why playwright Sharr White would choose to take that direction, but I fear it sucks the life-force out of the play, robbing it of its central narrative device and, in Profiles’ case, its greatest asset in the powerful acting of Mortensen. Don’t get me wrong, the second half of the play is still well-performed and executed (we expect little else from Profiles), but after such a strong opening half, the closing moments can’t help but disappoint."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Recommended
"..."The Other Place" was a vehicle for Steppenwolf star Laurie Metcalf, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance in the play in Broadway in 2013. Julianna's intensity and complexity would be red meat for an actress of Metcalf's brilliance, but Mortensen gives as good as she gets on the Profiles stage. It's an emotional and physically demanding performance as the character runs the psychological changes from aggression to despair. She's witty and take charge at the outset and tumbles into hysteria, confusion, denial, and ultimately self-knowledge by the end. I don't recall Julianna leaving the stage throughout the play so there is no breather time for Mortensen to gather herself for the psychological and emotional mountains to climb in the final scenes. It's a stunning piece of work technically, but her skill at carving out a credible character from all the sound and fury of the role makes the performance something special."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...This production, now receiving its Midwest premiere in a sleek production helmed by Profiles Theatre's Artistic Director, Joe Jahraus, packs an evening of theatrical pleasures into a tight 80 minutes. We meet successful neurologist Juliana at her best, addressing a medical conference (in the Virgin Islands with a compelling lecture on her medical break-through. In front of a stark white backdrop and projections, the confidence and charisma of Lia D. Mortensen are apparent as she makes deliberate eye contact with many of us in the theater while leavening the medical jargon with well-timed witty asides. (I especially enjoyed the improv chops she showed as she fumbled to turn on her hand-held mike.)"
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...But while the show begins as memoir it does not stay that way for long. Soon enough it becomes a kind of a neurological detective story, piecing together bits of truth and sifting them out from expansive roughs of fantasy. The intimate confines of Profile Theatre’s Main Stage make for a fine pressure-cooker in which director Joe Jahraus and his able cast slowly turn up the heat until everything boils over."