Reviewed by Tony Annicone
MMAS’s current show is “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl. This dark comedy centers on Jean, a 40 something unmarried woman who works at the Holocaust Museum. She answers a constantly ringing cell phone while sitting in a cafe. She picks it up to answer it and then realizes that the owner of the phone is dead. The man still has the phone in his hand and after picking it up, she starts on a journey to first call 911 and then keep the phone to keep the man alive. Gordon, the deceased man was involved in a unique line of work that unsettles Jean when she learns about it in the second act. Along the way she meets Gordon’s wife, Hermia, his brother, Dwight, his mother, Mrs. Gottlieb and his mistress, Carlotta. She attends the funeral posing as a co-worker, travels to the cafe to meet the mistress, goes to the Gottlieb home to have dinner, then to a stationary store with Dwight and then to heaven and back again as Jean unravels the mystery of the dead man’s cell phone with interesting, unsettling and intriguing information on her journey. Jean reinvents Gordon to bring peace to his family. The moral of the story is to spend less time with your cell phone and more time with your family, friends and loved ones. Becky Price makes her debut as a director at MMAS and does a stellar job with her casting, blocking and her keen eye into the comic elements of the script as well as the weightier ones dealing with unsavory business practices, immoral behavior and people’s unkindness to others.
Leading the cast as Jean is Ellen Robinson. She captures the essence of the character caught in the dilemma of having a dead man on her hands and trying to figure how to let the people constantly calling her know that he is dead. As Jean gets caught up in the family drama of the Gottliebs and Carlotta, the mistress, she concocts these nice stories claiming that Gordon said them. Ellen delivers the goods in this huge role.
Andy Riel shines as the unlikable Gordon who finally delivers a powerhouse
monologue at the start of the second act. He describes his transgressions in
his illegal activities and how he mistreats his family. Jean wants to makeup
for his “sins” and takes a trip to South Africa to atone for them.
Gordon has a dialogue with Jean about his last minutes on earth and wonders if
anyone really loved him for all his flaws When she reveals what she has found
out is when he acknowledges his wrong doings of the past.
Marianne Phinney does a terrific job as the tart tongued mother with her very
hilarious one liners in the first act. When two cell phones ring during the
funeral service, she utters “You will never walk alone. That’s right.
Because you will always have a machine in your pants that might ring.”
Becky’s use of the “Never Walk Alone” song fits in perfectly. The
mother asks Jean many questions, belittling her and telling her she needs to
eat a good meal of meat while she constantly drinks her glass of wine. The nice
brother, Dwight is excellently played by Mitch Kiliulis, a recent graduate of
Roger Williams University Theatre Program and The Stella Adler School of
Acting’s Summer Conservatory. He is wary of Jean at first and then grows
interested in her romantically when she admits to liking stationary and they go
to his job at the Stationary Store. They have a romantic evening of examining
different styles of paper. However this budding romance is interrupted in the
morning with Gordon’s constantly ringing phone which Jean cannot seem to
ignore. Will they find their way back to each other with their secret code of
Z?
Gordon’s sexy wife, Hermia is well played by Lauren Basler. The wife is
overwhelmed with joy when Jean gives her a gift of a bottle of salt supposedly
from Gordon. However Lauren’s funniest moments come during the second act when
she describes their love life while on a drunken spree. Rounding the cast out
as the femme fatale mistress, Carlotta, wonderfully played by Diana Doyle. She
is the first one that Jean meets with after Gordon’s demise. She questions Jean
and suspects she was also having an affair with Gordon. Jean is on her way to
meet Gordon’s mother and Carlotta insists on her putting lipstick on. Later on
in the show Carlotta meets Jean once again with a different outcome. So for a
contemporary show that makes you sit up and take notice to put your damn cell
phones down and have a conversation with each other especially family members,
be sure to catch this very clever dark comedy, “Dead Man’s Cell
Phone” to witness brilliant acting and strong insightful direction. Tell
them Tony sent you.
DEAD MAN’S CELL PHONE ( 17 January to 2 February)
MMAS Black Box Theatre, 377 North Main Street, Mansfield, MA
1(508)339-2822 or www.mmas.org
