Orange Lemon Egg Canary

“Peel an orange and uncover a lemon. Peel the lemon and find an egg. Crack the egg and … well, you might discover a chirping canary, or you might just get a whole lot of messy yolk on your hands. Could this possibly be a metaphor for love, or at least that other common form of dementia known as romantic delusion? New York-based playwright Rinne Groff suggests that might be the case in “Orange Lemon Egg Canary,” her stylish if somewhat less than satisfying tale of the radical, self-punishing things some people do in the name of love and/or lust, and of the monstrous confusion that can result from experiencing a magic moment (emphasis on moment) of hypnotic bliss. The play is now receiving its Chicago premiere by Uma Productions in what turns out to be a highly watchable if something less than perfect trick. Great (Dennis Watkins) is an appealing if somewhat elusive slacker who has inherited a gift and a passion for magic from his grandfather, who at one time had a popular stage show. Though attractive to women, and attracted by them, Great always seems to be standing behind an invisible wall when it comes to emotional attachment. And it might have been much the same way for his grandfather, too — a man who once had an assistant, Henrietta (Anne Adams), who would have done (and did) anything for him, and who suffered the fatal results of her devotion. Whether that came in the form of a magic trick that went very wrong — or whether the bad trick was just love that soured when life became too real — is a matter of interpretation. In any case, Great, a successfully low-key womanizer with a knack for inflicting pain, has had a number of assistants over the years. The newest is Trilby (Laura Hooper), who works as a waitress and has a certain toughness and determination that threatens to undermine his standard relationship tricks. Not even the warnings of a former permanently damaged assistant, Egypt (Elaine Robinson), who has her own mischief up her sleeve, can deter her.The play is not entirely convincing in the relationships it constructs, partly because neither Great nor Trilby are particularly well-developed characters, and something is missing in the chemistry between the two actors. Watkins (an actor who generally works with the House Theater) is a professional magician who deftly carries off neat tricks early on in the show, but he has a real chance to shine only in his big, climactic monologue. Nevertheless, under the heated direction of Mikhael Tara Garver (with a winning ruby red-curtained, Victorian-styled playing space designed by Brian Sidney Bembridge and spicy costumes by Aly Renee Greaves), the show proves seductive in a number of ways. Lush, exuberant Adams, in bustier and fishnets, is an especially galvanic force as the narrator-ghost who keeps the magic, as well as the prickly commentary, at the danger point. Robinson is ideally jagged and angry as the ex-mistress. And Stephanie Jacobs, silent throughout, has a certain hypnotic quality. “Orange Lemon” has plenty of “abra” if not the whole “cadabra.” – Recommended – Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times 4/23/07

“You might think the subtitle of Rinne Groff’s play–“A Trick in Four Acts”–refers to a feat of prestidigitation. After all, the main characters are a magician and his assistants; the plot has to do with an attempt to steal the magician’s secrets; and, yes, magic tricks are performed. But the real trick is literary: Groff attempts to ring changes on a single metaphor for nearly two hours. And a hokey metaphor at that: “love is magic.” Groff spins the conceit out cleverly, but the effort begins to cloy as she becomes ever more self-impressed and eager to display her whimsy. Mikhael Tara Garver’s staging for Uma Productions embraces the whimsy when it might have done better to inject some grit” – Tony Adler, Chicago Reader 4/26/07

“Like an apprentice magician practicing a trick again and again, Rinne Groff tirelessly works at her love-magic metaphor. When magician Great (Watkins) meets waitress Trilby (Hooper), both negotiate love’s trick-ridden terrain, where the object of affection isn’t quite what he or she seems. Meanwhile, Great’s magician-granddad’s assistant, Henrietta (Adams), a ghost in fishnet stockings, comments on the conceit: Magic’s illusion is like that of love; one wants to be duped, etc. Thanks to a captivating Adams, Henrietta’s scenes shimmer.Yet while describing the magic of love, Groff misses the magic of theater. Great says an audience, like a lover, wants to be fooled, but in both cases, one needs to trust the magician-lover-writer is worth being fooled for. Groff never establishes that trust; she gives Great and Trilby not sleight-of-hand romance but stilted, see-through dialogue. We detect the plot’s strings (Great, the deceiving magician, betrays Trilby); we spot the card up the author’s sleeve (Trilby, the deceptively passive assistant, betrays Great). Although we ask of Watkins (more magician than actor), How’d he do that?, we don’t have that out-of-body wonder for the play itself. And while Scotty Iseri’s sound design is excellent, the main set piece, an unwieldy red curtain, proves intrusive. Yet when even the talented Garver and Robinson (Great’s ex) can’t pull Groff’s language over our eyes, more polished performances and design likely wouldn’t do the trick. Near the end, Adams delivers Henrietta’s spurned-lover speech with utterly riveting passion; it’s the closest to real magic we ever get” – Novid Parsi, TimeOut Chicago 4/26/07