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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">‘Dead Man’s Cell
Phone’ offers theatrical wake-up call</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Bob
Abelman<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">News-Herald,
Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times
Courier<o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Member,
International Association of Theatre Critics <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></I></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
review appeared in the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">News-Herald on
</I></SPAN><SPAN
style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">11/5/10<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"
class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“No he’s not.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Can I take a
message?”<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Playwright Sarah Ruhl
has a way of using common expressions like this to call attention to invisible,
taken-for-granted phenomena and reveal their significance.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Catch phrases are launch pads for the
strange and metaphysical journeys of discovery taken by her clueless characters
and their willing audiences.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Dead Man’s Cell Phone</I>, on stage at the
Dobama Theatre, “no he’s not” refers to Gordon, who is no longer among the
living and, thus, not taking calls. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He has, in the opening moments of the
play, silently passed away in a small café while enduring the last of life’s
many letdowns—getting lentil soup when what he really craved was lobster
bisque.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“Can I take a
message” becomes Jean’s mantra and mission upon Gordon’s demise.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Jean, an unassuming stranger with no
life of her own, picks up Gordon’s ringing cell phone and, by doing so, picks up
his life where it left off.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She is
immediately connected to and absorbed into this man’s social network and takes
it upon herself to right his wrongs by reinventing who he was and writing
herself into his storyline.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The point of Ruhl’s
play is that the cell phone and other social media have allowed us to instantly
connect with but simultaneously be removed from one another.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We are knowable but remain unknown.
<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We are present but not really
there.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">By allowing us to
leave messages, cell phones suspend time.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>By reaching us everywhere, cell phones warp space. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even in death, our voice mail
perseveres.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Can you hear me
now?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The social and
spiritual de-evolution created by technological advancement, suggests Ruhl, is
absolutely bizarre, unnatural and quite disturbing. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Dead Man’s Cell Phone</I>—a wonderfully
absurd and very clever modern-day fairytale—she shows us just how bizarre it
is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The folks at Dobama
understand bizarre and do absurd up right.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Scenic designer Mark
Jenks has created a wonderfully surreal and creepy landscape for this play.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Walls, walkways and furniture are all at
peculiar and precarious angles, and there is a distorted sense of dimension as
one location—a dining room, a storage closet, a bar, a church—shares the same
space with the others.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The set
resembles the whimsically nightmarish plane of existence experienced by a
comatose Brendan Fraser in the otherwise forgettable film <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Monkeybone</I>. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Director Scott Miller
creates a plausible world of absurdity, where every delightful irregularity,
every odd moment and each irrational act is absolutely normative, but not to the
point where it goes unnoticed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As
with Ruhl’s writing, Miller’s point of view is present without being overly
pronounced. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">His creative vision
is enacted by a top-tier cast who completely buys into this play’s rules of
engagement and their characters’ quirks, and claims them as their
own.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Tracee Patterson is
magnificent as Jean.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She is so
profoundly unassuming, so invisible, that she nearly collapses in on
herself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Jean is pathologically
plain, yet everything Patterson does to create this timid character is complex
and so very interesting.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Watching
her navigate though this Wonderland of a netherworld and encounter all the
peculiar others that populate it is captivating.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The dead man’s cell
phone introduces Jean to Gordon's overbearing mother, Mrs. Gottlieb (Paula
Duesing); his mistress (Dianne Boduszek); his long-ignored wife Hermia (Maryann
Elder); and his underappreciated and emotionally gun-shy brother Dwight (Tom
Woodward).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Every one of them is
played to perfection—that is, they are genuinely bizarre and comedic creatures
that never lapse into caricatures or lose their humanity. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Every performance is intriguing in its
own way.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In Act 2, Jean is
reunited with Gordon as the play’s existential musings turn a bit too
metaphysical for their own good—a common practice in many of Ruhl’s other works,
including <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Clean House</I>. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fortunately, it is in this second
act that Gordon speaks his mind and actor Joel Hammer’s take on this loathsome
fellow is delightful. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>His diatribe
on the lobster bisque is superb.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As bizarre and
essentially existential as this play is, its message is clear and has a familiar
ring tone.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Dobama’s presentation of
it is provocative and certainly worth seeing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Oh, and please turn off your cell phones
and pagers before the performance.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Dead Man’s Cell
Phone<SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic"> </SPAN></SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">c</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">ontinues through
November 21 at the Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For tickets, which range from $10 to
$25, call 216-932-3396 or visit <A href=""><FONT
color=#0000ff>www.dobama.org</FONT></A>.</SPAN></P>
<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
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