Dead Man's Cell Phone, in the New Theatre, is Sarah Ruhl's metaphysical romp through postmillennial culture, high and low.
As it opens, a young woman named Jean, played to pretty, scattered perfection by festival newcomer Sarah Agnew, picks up a cell phone in a cafe when its clueless owner won't answer it. After discovering that he's dead, she pockets the phone and embarks on an odd, funny adventure through this random strangers life.
Directed by Christopher Liam Moore, the show is deliciously spare and funny. Starting at the dead man's funeral, Jean becomes immersed in Gordon Gottliebs family: his distant, alcoholic wife, Hermia (played by Terri McMahon); his dweeb of a brother, Dwight (Brent Hinkley), with whom she becomes romantically involved; and most of all, his wonderfully overpowering mother (played with perfect vengeance by Catherine Coulson).
The grieving mom brings us back to the world of color when she acidly observes, at the funeral, that we all must be in mourning these days as everyone always wears black.
Jeffrey King as the morally reprehensible Gordon is as knife sharp as Ruhl's language, which sparkles throughout. The play is witty and quick with but a few awkward moments, such as a Mission Impossible spoof that would take too long to describe.
The set, by Christopher Acebo, is gorgeous and stylish.
In the end, the plot plunges us into a cosmological wilderness so dense that there is probably no sorting it all out for the viewer. Just go and have a diverting afternoon or evening.