Imagine you’re enjoying dinner at your favorite cafe, and the pretentious suit seated next to you keeps letting his cell phone ring and ring as you savor the last few spoonfuls of what had been a quiet meal.
Would you kindly ask him to take the call? Would you clear your throat authoritatively? Or would you point directly to the noisy apparatus and let him know just how annoying the disturbance is?
And what if he were dead?
If you’re Jean, the mousy anti-heroine on the other end of Sarah Ruhl’s “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” you’d reach over and start taking his calls with a morbid sense of curiosity, a supernatural sense of loyalty not owed but vowed, and with the will of a woman determined to weasel her way into a perfect stranger’s less-than-perfect past.
» The Highlights
Ruhl’s quizzical new dramedy receives its world premiere production at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, in the same theater where Ruhl’s “The Clean House” swept gracefully across the stage a couple of seasons ago. Here again, Ruhl’s surreal poetry flies off of the stage in what is essentially a love story between two lonely navel gazers caught up in an odd twist of fate.
» The Lowlights
Ruhl’s popularity as a gifted playwright with a real penchant for digging into the human soul is well-earned and has theater companies clamoring to produce her work. But even the best writers need editing and refinement, and here Ruhl’s script remains a little underdeveloped. A very short first act is followed by a second act that trips itself up in quasi-drama and superficial conclusions. We know Ruhl can do better than that.
» The Cast
Rebecca Bayla Taichman directs a stellar cast of Woolly veterans who know wacky from bizarre and absurd from insane.
» Munch on This
“Nothing’s really silent anymore,” mumbles Jacobson’s sullen Hermia, and as Ruhl strives to make her mark on the tech-versus-talk debate, we’re all wired to the notion that what we’re witnessing is merely a virtual reality, one influenced by unseen radar waves and electronic reception flowing through our veins. It’s an enticing concept and an irresistible premise as proffered by one of our most important theatrical voices, and with their race to stage “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” Woolly Mammoth answers the call by providing an ideal home for edgy new works.
‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’
Through July 14
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
641 D St. NW, Washington
» Tickets: $32 to $52
» Performances: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
» Tickets: 202-393-3939, www.woollymammoth.net
