Dead Man's Cell Phone is a fairly new play by Sarah Ruhl, who is another "Friend of Bill (Rauch)," a theme that is developing here in Mr. Rauch's second year at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It debuted with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company of Washington, DC, in 2007, and now it's helping to open the 2009 season at OSF but is only playing for half the year, from February 19 to June 19, in the New Theatre. Unlike seeing a Shakespeare play, I suspect few people will be familiar with Dead Man's Cell Phone before seeing it. The vibe in the audience, then, is likely to be more inquisitive and (if the play succeeds) electric than you might be used to in some other productions: everyone wants to know what happens next. Sure enough, director Christopher Liam Moore sounds excited to surprise his audiences this year in this video on OSF's website.

The Play

The play revolved around Jean, who works at a Holocaust Museum. Sitting in a cafe, she becomes increasingly annoyed by the ringing cellphone of a man who appears to be asleep. She soon discovers that the man, one Gordon Gottleib, has just passed away. Nevertheless, as Jean says later, a ringing phone demands to be answered, and so she does. Soon, with the help of her comfort with vague answers ("I hadn't known him long," for example) she ingratiates herself into Gordon's circle of intimates.

This introduction to Gordon's family allows Ms. Ruhl an easy device for an outside observer to offer commentary on a collection of people who give her far more intimate access to their lives than she'd otherwise warrant. In exchange for "messages" from Gordon (there's no magic going on here, she's making things up), she gets a clear view of his estranged wife, his mistress, his chilly mother, and (cue strings) his brother, Dwight.

There's the obvious theme, of course, of the changes in society wrought by the constant connectivity of cell phones, paradoxically bringing us closer to talking to people but separating us from those we're near. (Full disclosure: I'm a happy luddite who has resisted the siren song of the cell phone. . . although, if I could get a Siren Song ring tone I might reconsider.) Sarah Ruhl, however, is an inventive playwright who will catch you off guard with an odd turn of phrase or an unexpected flight of fancy. Dead Man's Cell Phone is, for all of its morbid central conceit, a comedy of depth and wonder.

The Cast

Sarah Agnew is new to Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but as you might guess from her headlining debut she's no novice. City Pages in Minneapolis named her Best Actress for 2008 in acknowledgement of her work at the prestigious Guthrie Theater. She spent several years in the well-regarded Theatre de Jeune Lune, "a Franco- American theater troupe known for its inventive commedia dell'arte style" now, sadly, defunct, a casualty of the economic environment we live in. She also starred in a one-woman production of The Syringa Tree, in which she portrays two families, one black and one white, in 1960s South Africa. Reviews of her work are almost uniformly positive - I'm looking forward to her portrayal of Jean in Dead Man's Cell Phone.

Brent Hinkley, as Dwight, is not a complete newcomer but his performance is difficult to predict. As Samsthānaka in last year's The Clay Cart, he gave an incredibly broad, almost vaudevillian, turn as the evil, oafish brother-in-law of the King. While it was an effective execution of the part, I can't say that it shines much light on Mr. Hinkley's mastery of craft. Of course, if Dwight also goes around bare-chested, wielding a scimitar and a gigantic mustache, he's golden. :) His extensive film and theater credits, viewable here, speak well of him, as does the very fact that he's at OSF of course.

The Production

While saying a play from 2007 has "historical precedence," it's nevertheless true that most productions (notably this one in New York) have been quite spare. The text of the play calls only for tables and chairs, and according to Mr. Moore (the director) he intends to keep largely to those instructions. The latest information is that the production will be set upon a traditional thrust stage, which is almost an avant garde decision for the New Theatre!

Available Material on the Web

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Production Page

Mary-Louise Parker's Thoughts on the Play, from the New York Times

An amusing essay by the playwright, Sarah Ruhl, ostensibly about the writing of Dead Man's Cell Phone.