Colonial Players’ Dead Man’s Cell Phone
With a quirky cast of characters and a script full of great one-liners Dead Man’s Cell Phone keep you on your toes guessing and laughing for most of an hour and a half. The plot draws us in with questions we ask about our own mortality and technology.
How is technology affecting me socially? Does my cell phone connect me to the world or draw me away? Do I really need to answer my phone every time it rings, even when I’m on the toilet? Is there a heaven? Does everything happen for a reason? What do I want to be known for after I die? Who do I love most in the world?
The 2007 Helen Hayes outstanding play award winner opens in a café where a customer ignores his ringing cell phone. Annoyed by the ringing, Jean (Heather Quinn) repeatedly asks the man, Gordon (Jim Reiter), to answer his phone. When he does not, she answer for him and takes the message before she realizes he is dead. After calling 911, she keeps the cell phone and injects herself into his life, praying to God “Help me to comfort his loved ones. Help me to help the memory of Gordon live on in the minds and hearts of his loved ones.”
The next scene opens as Gordon’s mother, Mrs. Gottlieb (Mary Fawcett Watko) eulogizes her son. It’s a funeral, but she is funny, keeping us alive and awake with witty lines. After a phone rings in the service, she exclaims “There are only one or two sacred places left in the world today. Where there is no ringing. The theater, the church and the toilet. But some people actually answer their phones” in the latter these days.
It is Gordon’s cell phone ringing. Jean leaves the funeral to answer and meets the caller, who is Gordon’s mistress (Darice Clewell). To her and all the people who call the undead line, Jane says exactly what they most want to hear.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone brings a lot of themes and even some romance to the table. There are slow downs in the script, but the actors keep you involved. Theater in the round makes for four separate audiences, and the play’s six actors reach out to all. The theater is so intimate that you can appreciate even their smirking and grinning. Costuming was archaic compared to the phone, but the sparse set served its purpose.
About that cell phone: It’s a temptation but finally not a substitute for face-to-face connections.