Review: Ute Lemper's MARLENE DIETRICH Tribute Comes to 54 Below

The cold winds may have been blowing outside but the heat was intense inside the famed walls of 54 Below for the opening of Ute Lemper’s Celebration of the 125th Birthday of the late, great Marlene Dietrich on January 29, 2026.  What a night it was!

The flaxen-haired German-born chanteuse channelled the late sultry eyed Hollywood legend to a tee.  Dressed to impress in a black gown, a sequined top with a thigh high slit along with black opera length gloves and pearl accessories, Lemper truly embodied Dietrich. Singing Dietrich’s signature song “Falling In Love Again,” she meandered throughout the filled-to-capacity audience on her way to the stage.  Here the femme fatale Marlene Dietrich immortalized by 20th Century Hollywood came to life.

Lemper proceeded to relay to theatergoers that as a young, up-and-coming performer in Europe, she had written to Dietrich apologizing for all the comparisons the media in 1988 had made between the two women.  The result was a three-hour phone call from the great diva herself to Lemper, which was the basis of this show. A startled young singer was being taught the secrets of life learned “only through tears” from a screen legend.  Quite a lot for a 22 year old!  

Completely in character, Lemper bounced from sitting with her ear pressed to a landline phone to addressing the crowd.  Dietrich proceeded to say how the phone was her only connection to the world outside her Paris apartment by this stage of her life.  Her open marriage to Rudolf Sieber had become a known fact due to her many sexual liaisons with both men and women, as Lemper emphasized with “Just a Gigolo.” Yet her only child, Maria, always remained close to her.  

Theatergoers listened intently as Ute Lemper, remaining in character relayed over her “phone conversation” how it was  Marlene Dietrich’s international success in Josef Von Sternberg’s 1929 German film, The Blue Angel, the story of Lola, a cabaret singer, that catapulted her to fame. Perched on a stool complete with a bowler hat and cigarette the elegant Ute Lemper truly embodied the iconic character of  Lola, a cabaret singer who was a vamp, a tramp and a completely sexual being.  It was as if Marlene Dietrich was truly on the stage that evening.  The clamour over the film brought her to the attention of America and onto Paramount studios, but at a price.  

Here things turned a bit dark; Dietrich went on to tell a young Lemper on the phone how she then was labelled a “traitor to the Fatherland”. As a rabid anti-Nazi, the German public was turned against her for not cooperating wth the Third Reich to make films in Germany with the renowned Leni Riefenstahl.  Instead she flourished in Hollywood, famed for her vast knowledge of lighting her face, she starred with all the famous leading men (and usually having affairs with them as well as producers, crew etc). Films such as Morocco, Blonde Venus, The Song of Songs and The Devil is a Woman, among them. Dietrich was now a superstar. 

As World War II loomed, Lempe told us of how Dietrich joined the US Army to bring entertainment to the troops.  She and famed director, Billy Wilder, along with other German exiles helped Jews and other refugees escape the clutches of the Nazi’s.  In 1943, Propaganda Minister Goebbels repudiated her publicly, now she was afraid of being captured by the Nazis while in Europe. 

Once the war ended, Lemper relayed that it was now that Dietrich went on to work with the great and the good including Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and of course her good friend, Billy Wilder.  But by the 1950s, Dietrich’s phone stopped ringing with film offers, so she took her old sad songs on stage again as a cabaret singer in Las Vegas, striving to remain glamorous with body hugging clothes, taped “facelifts” and her famed careful lighting.  A 1962 return trip to West Germany was met with hostility and she vowed never to return except in death.  That is where Marlene Dietrich hung up the phone on Ute Lemper.  A three hour conversation was truly an autobiography.

Marlene Dietrich  lived in Paris in ailing health until her death in 1992.  Ironically, it was right after Ute Lemper portrayed Lola in The Blue Angel in Berlin, the very same role that made Marlene Detrich a star at the same age.  Yet in death Marlene Dietrich has become a cultural icon in Germany, to the very descendants of those who abhorred her politics.

Ute Lemper is an amazing storyteller.  Through her recreation of that 1988 “telephone conversation” with the late diva she beautifully unfolded each episode in the complex life of Marlene Dietrich punctuated by song.  These included:  “Wenn Ich Mir was wunschen durfte”, “One for My Baby”, “Want to Buy Some Illusions, “Where have all the Flowers Gone’, Ich bin die fesche Lola”, “The Boys in the Backroom”, “ Lili Marlene”, “The Laziest Girl in Town”, “Que reste-t-il denos amour”, “Ne me quitte pas”, and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”  

Marlene Dietrich it seems was a complicated character, or as Ute Lemper says “a woman of the future.” She shocked society with her sexuality both onscreen and off.  From her numerous affairs to her use of  “masculine type” clothing (she wore pant suits, top hats and such long before anyone else did).  Dietrich’s many incredible collaborations, love stories and long career inspired not only Ute Lemper, but all of us.  Ute Lemper truly gives the audience a birds’ eye view into the world and people who created Weimar Germany - from the glamorous 1930’s style clothing to the “dark” underbelly of culture which challenged society’s norms.  

Ute Lemper: Celebrating Marlene Dietrich’s 125th Birthday starred the incomparable talents of Ute Lemper. It continues tonight, January 30, and tomorrow, January 31. Find tickets to it and more great shows to see on the 54 Below website here