'Dead Man's Cell Phone' - No Answer

Dead Man's Cell Phone                                                                                                          

by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Carmel O'Reilly                                                          

Scenic Design, Cristina Todesco; Costume Design, David Reynoso; Lighting Design, John Malinowski; Sound Design & Composition, Dewey Dellay; Production Stage Manager, Maureen Lane; Assistant Stage Manager, Amanda Ostrow

Featuring: Beth Gotha (Mrs. Gottlieb), Liz Hayes (Jean), Bryn Jameson (Hermia), Jeff Mahoney (Dwight), Neil McGarry (Gordon), Jessica D. Turner (Other Woman)

Performances through November 14 at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston     Box Office 617-585-5678 or www.lyricstage.com

There is no small amount of irony in a theatre company producing a play about cell phones in this day and age. One can rarely sit through a live performance without hearing the annoying braying of a cell phone before the curtain comes down, despite the obligatory warning at the top of the show about unwrapping candy and turning off electronic devices. Even at the press opening at the Lyric Stage on Sunday, there was an errant ringing in the audience during the first act. Don't they get it? Does every audience have at least one totally narcissistic boob who thinks the rules don't apply to them? On some level, I can appreciate why Sara Ruhl was driven to focus on this subject. On another level, I don't want to listen to a phone ringing repeatedly on stage as a theatrical device either. The sound is equally irritating.

Now that I got that off my chest, I will tell you that Dead Man's Cell Phone is more than an array of ring tones. It deals with the important subject of connection vs. disconnection in human relationships and how that is informed by the proliferation of the hand-held communication device. A lifeline to some, in Ruhl's play, the phone serves as the mechanism to reconnect the living with the recently departed, offering the chance to right misunderstandings and allay misgivings. Employing her own brand of magical realism, the playwright weaves a story that grows more fantastic with each encounter and requires suspensions of disbelief of massive proportions.

Jean (Liz Hayes) is seated alone in a café when her thoughts are interrupted by the ringing phone at the next table. Thinking that the man (Neil McGarry) ignoring it must be deaf, she finally scurries over to answer it, only to discover that he is, in fact, dead. Thus begins her crazy tumble down the rabbit hole of his life, bringing her in contact with his family and business associates. Be it loneliness or curiosity that drives her, Jean lets her life be taken over by her new mission to carry on Gordon Gottlieb's life. When she meets his mother, wife, and brother, she attempts to rearrange the broken pieces of their relationships with Gordon, hoping to give them some comfort in the aftermath of his sudden death. Although she never actually spoke with him, Jean creates last words that Gordon supposedly wanted her to convey to Mrs. Gottlieb (Beth Gotha), Hermia (Bryn Jameson), and Dwight (Jeff Mahoney) respectively.

Jean turns out to be a remarkable prevaricator and wins the affection of the three, to varying degrees. After letting them think she worked with Gordon, she is repulsed when she learns that he was in the business of buying and selling human organs. In his own defense, the dead man opens the second act with an explanatory monologue outlining how his venture filled the gaps in the organ donation system, making the case that he performed a humanitarian service. He also walks us through his heart attack at the café and makes us privy to his dying thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, Jean meets the Other Woman (Jessica D. Turner) in Gordon's life and they wrestle over the disposition of his enterprise in an airport in South Africa, resulting in Jean reuniting with Gordon (I told you it grows more fantastic).   

Hayes does a good job of showing Jean's initial struggle with her choIce To answer the phone and her growing connection to it. Her virtual empty cup is filled by meeting the people in Gordon's life and she swells with anticipation each time she flips it open. Ruhl chooses not to let us know anything about Jean's life before the scene in the café, but she uses her to open windows into the lives of the others. Gotha walks a fine line between the grieving mother and the woman rebuffed by her son, looking upon this stranger with a healthy skepticism. Jameson thaws her bored ice princess demeanor after hearing her late husband's confessions, and Mahoney brings the overlooked brother to life when he is no longer in Gordon's shadow. Turner mixes an air of mystery and disinterest to add a dollop of intrigue to the plot. Despite the fact that his character is dead from the get-go, McGarry is quite lively and dominates the stage, dead or alive. His heart attack reenactment is especially convincing.  

Carmel O'Reilly directs this fable and constructs a simple, abstract setting with the assistance of her design team Cristina Todesco, David Reynoso, John Malinowski, and Dewey Dellay. Tables and chairs are moved around to evoke the café, a church, a bar, and a dining room, and lighting changes create out-of-this-world effects. The cell phone rings clearly and consistently on cue, I am almost sorry to report.

The challenge for O'Reilly and her cast is to make us care about Ruhl's rather flat characters who are not only disconnected from each other, but also from themselves. With the exception of Gordon and the Other Woman, they live tedious lives and don't seem to have any idea how to change or grow until they are rescued by the random event of Jean co-opting Gordon's phone. I get the metaphor of the phone as organ or, perhaps, life blood, but it just isn't enough to make me care about them or believe in their transformations. Besides, I can't imagine answering a stranger's phone, but Jean does and continues to do so with little, if any, regard for the consequences. Of course, without that, there would be no play.

The cell phone has become an important global communication tool. According to press materials, there are over 4 billion in use in 2009 and, in a number of countries, their quantity exceeds the population by as much as 50%! This explosion may be one reason for the demise of face-to-face contact and intimacy, especially for those who text message. Conversely, live theatre promotes and encourages connection between people, but it relies on good stories, solid writing, and an engaged audience. Dead Man's Cell Phone hits two for three.

Photo credit: The Lyric Stage Company of Boston (Beth Gotha, Bryn Jameson, Jeff Mahoney, Liz Hayes) 

 

 

 

 

 

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