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Dead Man's Cell Phone Reviews
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On Seeing Dead Man’s Cell Phone at Playwrights Horizons -1 Review by: Beth M., Mar 18, 2008 |
By Beth Mandelbaum - Part 1
Dead Man’s Cell Phone is one of the most usual plays that I have seen in a while. I personally very much appreciated its often bizarre, quirky, dreamy, and highly imaginative surrealistic approach. It is also extremely funny in many parts, though the humor may well strike some as rather odd, but for me, this is part of its charm. What I find so interesting is that Sarah Ruhl’s plays, in spite of the ... read more enormous degree of what I would call “unreality,” i.e., a kind of going beyond normal behavior in normal situations of daily life, her “fantastic” (in the sense of fantasy) plays seem to touch me at the core. And the surreal nature of her plays seem to offer significant spiritual and philosophical truths with deep underlying messages. While not as emotionally powerful as the playwright Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice of last season, Dead Man’s Cell Phone does showcase what is so special, perhaps even groundbreaking, about her plays.
The basics of the plot can certainly be taken at face value as “reality,” in the sense that the events of the story could conceivably happen in the course of ordinary life. Dead Man’s Cell Phone begins with a fairly non-descript woman named Jean, eating soup in a café and very much minding her own business, when all of a sudden a cell phone, which seems to be at the one other table in the room, is constantly ringing, and ringing and ringing, much to her annoyance. She finally takes the courage to go over to that table to ask the gentleman “seated” there if he would just answer the phone. But when there is no response, she suddenly realizes that he is dead.
Even before she calls 911 to report his death (no one seems to be working in the café) she starts taking messages! Jean ultimate meets and becomes very involved in the lives of the people closest to the newly deceased Gordon: his widow, his mother, his brother, and his mistress. As the self appointed “beneficiary” of Gordon’s cell phone, she becomes increasingly enmeshed in their lives, and also with some extremely shady types who relate to Gordon’s business, which is cleverly and humorously alluded to, and whose grizzly nature, lacking in ethics and morality, becomes increasingly revealed.
Jean does not own a cell phone. I feel that one of the reasons that she keeps Gordon’s is out of the strange and brief attachment that she feels towards the dead stranger with whom she feels a very odd kind of “love.” She also perceives the cell phone as a way to “connect,” something which seems lacking in her life.
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Jean is clearly extremely lonely and also a genuine nurturer. Perhaps out of the depths of her neediness, she holds Gordon’s lifeless body and promises to stay with him for as long as he needs (or at least until the medics come to take his body away).
Jean is a woman with a rather quiet, dead pan, affect-less emotional persona. And yet, as the play progresses, beneath all of these traits are seething emotions and passions that come to surface. One of the most humorous and unlikely events is a “being swept off one’s feet” romance with Gordon’s somewhat “schleppy,” but totally well intentioned brother Dwight, who has spent his life playing “second fiddle” to Gordon, even after Gordon’s death.. Both share a passion for embossed stationary.
Jean seems to need to “adopt” Gordon’s family in part out of her seeming personal isolation, and the sad routine of working in the office of a Holocaust Museum. Death and memory pervade this play and are significant themes.
Jean takes on the role of self appointed listener and comforter, and also becomes a sort of ray of sunshine who extremely cleverly and humorously creates stories that are untrue about Gordon’s feelings towards them before his death, which makes each of those left behind feel that they were truly loved by Gordon, and thereby helping them to get beyond their doubts. However, their relationships |
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My recommendation:
Make an effort to see
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On Seeing Dead Man’s Cell Phone at Playwrights Horizons-2 Review by: Beth M., Mar 18, 2008 |
By Beth Mandelbaum - Part 2
Dead Man’s Cell Phone is very much a play about death, loss and grief. And one of the most striking themes, and one that has deep meaning for me, has to do with what has been left unsaid. One comes away with a strong sense of how important it is for people to tell those in their lives the positive things that they feel about them, especially as relationships so often become troubled and difficult. Otherwise, ... read more it becomes too late: the loved one is no longer there to tell them, and there will always be the nagging wondering.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone is very much a play for our times. There is considerable interesting philosophizing about the culture of the cell phone. There is discussion about how we as a society have lost the capacity to experience silence. And while the cell phone may offer an illusion of connection with others, we can never really know them as all we are given are fragments of their lives. And there is also the issue of lost privacy. As one of the characters so aptly puts it, “Where have all the phone booths gone?”
And the idea that because of our cell phone culture, one can be living in a world where people no longer talk to strangers to connect and create community, because of the “machine that is always in our pockets.” One is indeed ever poised for the opportunity to call someone or hear from someone whom one already knows. I found this fascinating. And there is some provocative discussion about the idea that when one has a cell phone, there is a need to be “present,” even when one wants to “escape” and “disappear.”
Dead Man’s Cell Phone has an extraordinary cast. Mary Louise Parker does a wonderful job playing Jean. To me, this is a role that seems perfect for her whimsical, ethereal and rather “off-center” style of acting. Kathleen Chalfant was fantastic as Gordon’s elite, haughty, and aristocratic mother. And also very noteworthy was David Aaron Baker in the role of Dwight. Also excellent was T. Ryder Smith as Gordon, first convincingly playing a corpse (!), and then giving a masterful monologue at the opening of the second act.
This play struck me as having some key commonalities with another fascinating play that I saw earlier this season, Adam Bock’s The Receptionist, which also involves constantly ringing phones, an increasing revelation of mysterious and unethical professional involvement, people becoming in grave danger and the ultimate surrendering of the phone. In Dead Man’s Cell Phone, the act of surrendering is the key to letting go.
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My recommendation:
Make an effort to see
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dead mans play Review by: c, Feb 25, 2008 |
| I wanted to love this show as i am a big Mary Louise Parker fan - but could not find any redeeming quality in any of the characters - just did not seem believable - no grieving from the characters and chemistry was just not there - can't wait for season 4 of weeds on showtime - love ya mary louise just not in this one |
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| * Review is an opinion of a BroadwayBox user and not that of BroadwayBox.com and BroadwayBox, Inc. |
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