Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Paul Luby
Starring Garlen Sarai Maxson
Seminole State College, Lake Mary, FL</strong>
I hate cell phones, and now they can bother you even in the grave. Sitting in a café, Jean (Maxson) finds Gordon’s (Ian White) cell phone nearly as annoying as I do. But he’s dead, he died quietly waiting for a bowl of Lobster Bisque so Jean decides to fall in love with him. She answers his cell phone and gradually becomes involved in his life and family. He’s not a pleasant man, he’s disliked by his wife, mistress, mother, brother and for all we know Mother Teresa. But Jean loves him, dead and all, and makes up a back story for him that seems to satisfy everyone from The Other Woman (Amy Blaker) to his cranky Mom (Amanda Stafford) to his emotionally distant wife Hermia (Skyller Armenta). Eventually Jean dopes out his real job, gets in over her head, and joins him in that special part of the stage with the deep red lighting.
Part absurdist comedy, part commentary on intrusive technology, this play succeeds in annoying us with incessant cell phone tones while using them to push the story forward. As Jean finds love with a live guy, she like so many has an even deeper romance with instant pervasive communications. As she insists, “If it’s ringing, it must be answered” and even in the face of a marriage proposal, she intones “I’m on the phone” even though it’s a complete stranger on the other end. There seem to be a few lost jokes in this production, and it didn’t really click until the second act where Ruhl finally doled out some action. Blaker and Maxson did some decent stage fighting, and the Ice Capades sequence was great fun. Armeta’s cranky wife was the best acting on stage but White’s Gordon seems flat and Mrs. Gottlieb more strident than needed. Jonathan Ferrare as Dwight was low keyed, but seemed like a genuinely nice guy. The set was spare, the lighting by Richard Harmon was terribly clever and his umbrella montages an unexpected treat. Yes, there was a “turn of your cell phone speech” at the beginning, and yes, many of the students kept theirs on and texted throughout the show. At least the guy in front of me kept the lights down low, but the three scared cell phone free spaces (Church, Theatre, and John) are no longer inviolate. Just keep me out of the conversation. Your life doesn’t interest me in the least.
For more information on the Seminole State College Theater program, please visit http://www.seminolestate.edu/arts/theatre/boxoffice.htm
