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Alina Phelan and Trent Dawson in Dead Man's Cell Phone. Photo, Suzanne Mapes.
Dead men may not tell tales, but they do leave cell phones behind. Shenanigans invariably ensue, especially when a bold, foolish soul picks up the ringing nuisance and answers the call. Such is the premise for Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a play auspiciously heralded by the Ghost of Stephen Foster, one of many songs by the great, spicy band Squirrel Nut Zippers that electrify the score.
A commentary on a technology-mediated world delivered via romantic comedy, the play follows the trajectory of a gentle avalanche as a woman in a café becomes entangled in a dead man’s life. It begins with taking messages, then leads to meeting the man’s family, which includes mild-mannered brother Dwight and overbearing mother Mrs. Gottlieb, and culminates with revelations and encounters of increasing quirkiness. Throughout it all, the play’s flummoxed heroine discovers the hazards of becoming someone’s post-mortem secretary – and rewards as well, in that the irony of alienation reverses itself, highlighting technologies’ precarious position between boon and bust.
The play is something of a bon-bon, with loosely sketched rather than finely drawn characters, and a mild disposition in critiquing the ways in which technology ironically results in alienation rather than intimacy. Yet Ruhl’s keen insight and sweet sense of humour, laced with gently mordant black comedy, makes it a thoughtful and charming vehicle for a portrait of people in transition. The ever-reliable ICT’s production quality supports and enhances the text, with director Richard Israel judiciously using minimal settings and stage props to keep audience attention focused on the actors. The cast does not disappoint in its task; What their characters lack in biography they make up for with vigourous portrayals that convey essential personalities.
It is the depth of performance as well as the earnest concern for our human condition underlying the humour that makes plausible, rather than sentimental, Ruhl’s oft-proposed but rarely enacted solution to the technological divide. Just as we are reminded, before the play’s start, to shut off our cell phones for the benefit of an enjoyable theatrical experience, Dead Man’s Cell Phone reminds us of the value of switching off our devices for the benefit of an enjoyable human experience. And that reminder applies just as much to enjoying the company of the people we cherish as it does to appreciating a performance that is live, chemical, and personal rather than mediated through buttons, pixels, and projections.
Dead Man's Cell Phone is on stage at the International City Theatre at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center through June 30th. For show information, including show times and tickets, visit www.internationalcitytheatre.org or call 562-436-4610.
Frédérik Sisa is the Page's Assistant Editor and resident arts, entertainment, and culture critic. He invites you to visit his blog, Ink & Ashes, and join him on Twitter as he figures out this whole tweeting business.
