[NEohioPAL] Berko review: DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE (Dobama)

[Roy Berko]

DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE'S makes for a fascinating but off-putting experience at 
Dobama
 
Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

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At the start of DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE, now on stage at Dobama Theatre, the to be 
expected “Please turn off your cell phone” echoed forth.  Sarah Ruhl, the author 
of the play, probably would add an additional warning, “Throw away your cell 
phone if you expect your life to filled with meaningful relationships.”

Ruhl is one of the most acclaimed young authors working in the theater today. 
She writes surrealist fantasies that happen to be populated by eccentric people, 
who find themselves in illogical dreams which appear to be real.  She blends the 
mundane and the metaphysical, the authentic and the obscure.  She does not write 
in the traditional mode of beginning (exposition), middle (story development), 
conclusion (this is what the whole story means or this is the moral.)  Her 
format is nonlinear.  She throws in surprises and mysteries as she probes how 
people experience life.   She has said, “Everyone has a great, horrible opera 
inside him. I feel that my plays, in a way, are very old-fashioned fancifully 
surreal aspects of the story.”  

Sound confusing?  That's probably why many of the audience left mumbling that 
they didn't understand what was going on and the post-play discussion was filled 
with questions probing the meaning of the piece.
In DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE, while eating in a restaurant, Jean picks up the 
incessantly ringing cell phone of a stranger (Gordon). He has good reason not to 
answer it himself: Gordon is dead. Answering the cell, the simplistic Jean, like 
Alice in wonderland, falls into a strange psychological hole.  As she wanders 
further and further, events keep getting odder and odder.  We learn that Gordon 
has a lack of real connection with family and friends, though he has been in 
constant contact with them via cell phone calls and messages.  He searches after 
bodies, but not for emotional contact. 

Jean gets swept up in a world, like the world many of us inhabit, in which 
electronic media acts as the conduit for personal relationships…cell phones, 
voice mail, texting, twittering, email, electronic meetings.  As Ruhl explains 
it, “I started the play before cell phones were as ubiquitous as they are - but 
I felt as though they were already changing culture, our sense of solitude and 
community and our sense of time as always happening in the instant.”   She goes 
on to say that, in spite of extensive communication, much of it is meaningless, 
often we don't even care who is listening, and that “the air is now filled with 
these voices - there is no longer any privacy.”

Jean finds herself making up lies to cover for Gordon's lack of conveying his 
feelings and thoughts to his “loved ones.”  She uses her imagination to fill in 
what she thinks Gordon should have said.   This results in a reconstruction of 
Gordon's relationships with his wife, mother, and mistress.  One must question 
whether Jean's actions are stimulated by her own yeaning and lack of fulfillment 
in her own relationships.

Dobama's production, under the direction of Scott Miller.  is unfocused.  Yes, 
the play is abstract, but, as was revealed during the opening night talk-back, 
Miller seems to have avoided asking himself, and forcing his cast to probe into 
what Ruhl was specifically trying to convey.  

As I was watching the performance and listening to the talk back, I could only 
recount the words of Donald Bianchi, the original Artistic Director of Dobama 
who used to preach over and over, “As a director or an actor, if you don't 
clearly  know what you are trying to say to an audience, you will not accomplish 
your end goal.”  

Yes, Ruhl writes in metaphysical terms, but if the director and cast had decided 
on what they thought were her underlying motivates, the play may have been 
focused and probably made more sense.  The cast and director explained 
themselves with such phrases as: “My purpose was to stay in the moment.” 
“Everyone has to create their own journey.” “We each bring something to it.” 
“You can take the script and go any place with it.”   Sorry, but, to again flash 
back to Bianchi's concept, unless the director and the cast know what they, as a 
unit, are trying to accomplish, the results is what may have best be summed up 
by a question of a member of the audience, “What was going on here?”

In spite of the obtuseness, the performances were excellent.  Excellent as 
performance art, not of conveying clarity of ideas.   It's like, as Bianchi used 
to say,  “If a wonderful actor reads from a phone book, we can be astounded by 
his skill, but that doesn't mean we'll gain much from what is said.”

Joel Hammer, Tracee Patterson, Paula Duesing, Maryann Elder, Dianne Boduszek and 
Tom Woodward all performed high levels of performance art.

The clearest focus on stage was Mark Jenks set design.  Consisting of abstract 
walls, risers that were off-kilter, and over-lapping areas of action, it 
conveyed Ruhl's out of balanced surrealistic concepts.

 CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Dobama's DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE will fascinate some and 
confound others.  It probably isn't going to be an easy sit or a meaningful 
experience for many, in spite of excellent acting.

DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE runs through November 21 at Dobama.  Call 216-932-3396 for 
tickets. 
Roy Berko's blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2001 through 
2010, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at 
http://royberko.info
His reviews can also be found on www.coolcleveland.com and NeOHIOpal (to 
subscribe visit http://mailman.listserve.com/listmanager/listinfo/neohiopal.)