The title, Dead Man's Cell Phone, hints at the possibilities.
And, because people read the programs before the play opens, the play's first hurdle is keeping the forewarned audience involved when, in its first moments, a mousy woman named Jean wonders why the man seated at a nearby table won't answer his incessantly ringing cell phone.
No worries.
With Sarah Agnew starring as Jean, a lonely woman whose working hours are spent at a Holocaust museum, Dead Man's Cell Phone takes on surprising life. Written by Sarah Ruhl, a former poet turned playwright, Dead Man is a fascinating exploration of life and death, and of loneliness and love. When Jean answers the dead man's phone, her life rumbles off in unexpected directions.
Directed by Christopher Liam Moore, the play nicely uses its intimate New Theater setting to seamlessly move Jean through a world that involves the dead man's family, wife, mistress and his nefarious business dealings.
There's laugh-out-loud comedy, moments of pure tenderness and foreboding as Jean, forever rooting though a handbag that carries the ever-ringing cell phone and tangling with her uncooperative umbrella, creates an imagined place in the dead man's life. Jean serves as a metaphor for an age of magic wand technology that connects people to unseen others while creating a distance from those closest to us.
Agnew is excellent in creating Jean as a woman searching for love who's desperate to give hope to those around her. Excellent, too, is a supporting cast that includes Catherine E. Coulson as the dead man's snarling mother, Miriam A. Laube as The Other Woman, Terri McMahon as the dead man's wife, Brent Hinkley as his Mr. Peepers-like brother and Jeffrey King as Gordon, the dead man who comes alive in another world.
The play is also considerably assisted by Christopher Acebo's sets, Lonnie Alcaraz's mood-inducing lighting and Paul James Prendergast's sound designs, including the haunting sounds of cell phone chatter seemingly traveling the universe. It's a perfect play for the theater, but one that only lasts until June 19.
Ruhl's script is wacky, intriguing and tightly under control until losing control near its confusing ending, which includes a false ending. Despite some minor hang-ups, Dead Man's Cell Phone is a lively, ring-a-ding treat. Answer the call.