ANOTHER HIT PLAY FROM SARAH RUHL
                                               By Carol Benet
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater
                                                                  Weeks starting May 22, 2009
                                                                 Vol. 11, No. 104
           Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone at SF Playhouse is one of the best plays of the season.  Written by MacArthur "Genius Award" winner and playwright of The Vibrator Play, recently premiered at the Berkeley Rep and scheduled to go to New York, Sarah Ruhl is, as they say on the boards, hot stuff.
            This theme touches everyone, as the use of cell phones is ubiquitous.  Just see the people yammering away while taking a walk on the Belvedere/Tiburon bike path, on Mt. Tam, driving cars, or while in line for anything, and everywhere.  Jean (Amy Resnick), the female lead of this play, is fed up!
            Sitting in café  and trying to concentrate, she is irritated by the incessant ringing of a cell phone on a neighboring table.  The man sitting there does not pick up.  Finally she goes over, tries to talk to him and he keels over dead.
            Her response to the caller, the conversations with others on the man’s phone, and her life are immediately changed as she is thrown into a world of suspense, weirdness and existential questions that probe the very meaning of being. 
            Flashbacks allow the man (Bill English) to come back and his first, very long monologue reveals he has been a dealer in pirated body organs.  His reasoning for his profession is filled with the excuses and obfuscations of why organs should be redistributed.  We hear these explanations on C Span and other live TV shows of the CEOs of our major companies as well as financial firms justifying their actions as well as their products.  This play just happens to be about body parts and cell phones.  How abstract can you get? 
            The dead man’s brother (Jackson Davis), his mother (Joan Mankin), mistress (Florentina Mocanu), wife (Rachel Klyce) are plausibly portrayed as members of this complicated family. Jean is the only outsider who quickly becomes enmeshed with them, yet she is still the voice of reason here.  When she exclaims, “What happened to all the phone booths?” in her frustration with the cell phone noise, she shows she is still outside the craziness.
            Susi Damilano, co-founder of The SF Playhouse with Bill English, directs this work in the small theater upstairs, with lighting by  Kurt Landisman, set by Vola Ruben and  videos by Kristin Miltner.  Mark Koss has the costumes just right. They definitely needed  Kimberly Richards to choreograph the production, just to get the actors in and off this tiny stage.
            Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone plays at The SF Playhouse through June 13.  533 Sutter Street, San Francisco near Mason. (415)  677 9596 or go online. 

                                    #
        © Carol Benet 2009
           Carol Benet is a regular theater reviewer for artssf.com.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly)focus on theater, dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, and a few departures into books (by authors of the region)as well.
                      #
              Return to main menu