Orange Lemon Egg Canary A Trick in Four Acts by Rinne Groff

"Danger, deceit, vengeance, lust and ambition all take their turns accelerating the wicked whirlwind... Like a fine juggler, Groff keeps multiple rings suspended in mid-air throughout her elegantly framed story, surprise following surprise."

"With pure magic, Rinne Groff blends a love story, a ghost story and a magic act into ravishing entertainment. The technically audacious play, whose title refers to a feat of transformation, draws intriguing parallels between the seduction and illusions of romance and the willing seduction of an audience by the illusions of a master magician."

"[G]ives audiences an engrossing and richly conceived look into the illusion of love... Groff's script utilizes a heady mix of heightened language and common dialogue as it jets back and forth in time and from reality to fantasy."

"The production that most successfully navigated the real/unreal continuum was a play that addresses it explicitly: Rinne Groff's sleek, sexy Orange Lemon Egg Canary (A Trick in Four Acts), about a magician and his female assistants. With the setup of a slight, formulaic plot, Groff...pulls a theatrical sleight of hand that's no less enjoyable for its being teasingly obvious, no less thrilling for showing us the seams. It's also almost sinfully funny and spectacular."

"Groff has the touch to make a play magical, thematic, understandable, theatrical, and touching. And this play isn't easy to stage, requiring a demanding trick called the Hypnotic Balance, in which a woman...is balanced on a pointed spike and spun around like a roulette wheel. Yes, she wears a hidden brace on her back, but it's painful just to watch. And it's funny as she banters about with other characters while impaled. The danger is also palpable."

"The play is full of illusions and sleight of hand, which become metaphors for trust and illusion -- key components of both love and deception... The play's title is the name of a trick, like dolls nested within dolls, and it's a nice metaphor for the way playwright Groff keeps peeling away layers to get closer to the truth -- or what appears to be the truth. Orange is an unusual and intriguing piece of writing that would be a delightful, literate and manageable show for a Cincinnati theater."

"The best of the [Humana Festival] crop this year is Rinne Groff's insightful look at love in the context of competition between magicians. Compelling characters, a meaningful script and the successful combination of the spectacle of illusion with the narrative arts will earn future productions."

"Seasoned with a lot of nifty (and sometimes scary) stage magic, the play explores the territory on either side of the boundary between 'what we see and what we believe,' and the ambiguity applies equally to the illusions and the character's relationships."

"Successfully meshes drama with magic incorporating a sensational stunt titled 'Hypnotic Balance' whereby a magician's assistant is suspended horizontally over a long metal spike."

"Taking its title from a famous trick, Rinne Groff's play uses the deceptions of magic as a seriocomic metaphor for love. It ends up working on several levels, offering glimpses behind the illusions of both performance and relationships."

"This compelling mystery of love is explored through everything from card tricks to a stunning spectacle called Hypnotic Balance, where the magician's assistant spins on a spike."