Dead Man's Cell Phone
by Sarah Ruhl

Name: Dead Man's Cell Phone
Brand: Sarah Ruhl
SKU: 9780573663925
Rating: 4.01 (123 reviews)

Dead Man's Cell Phone Book Cover — Dead Man's Cell Phone Cover

Highlights

Small Cast

Female

Male

120 minsPresent DayStrong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle)Unit Set/Multiple SettingsContemporary Costumes/Street ClothesAmerican Comedy

What readers are saying

Readers find 'Dead Man's Cell Phone' to be a unique blend of magical realism and quirky humor. Many appreciate its exploration of love and connections in a technology-driven world. While some reviews noted a tendency towards goofiness or confusion in the plot, overall reception remains positive, celebrating its creativity and thought-provoking themes.

Creative and thought-provokingQuirky and humorousStrong character explorationEngaging and fast-pacedSome parts feel incoherent

Synopsis

Dramatic Comedy / 2m, 4f / Unit SetAn incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café.

A stranger at the next table who has had enough.

And a dead man-with a lot of loose ends.

So begins Dead Man's Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative new comedy by MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sarah Ruhl, author of The Clean House and Eurydice.

A work about how we memorialize the dead-and how that remembering changes us-it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own ass

Press Reviews

"The beguiling new comedy [...] blends the mundane and the metaphysical, the blunt and the obscure, the patently bizarre and the bizarrely moving [...] [Ruhl] writes surrealist fantasies that happen to be populated by eccentrically real people, comedies in which the surface illogic of dreams is made meaningful – made truthful"
— by the deeper logic of human feeling." - The New York Times

"Satire is her oxygen [...] In her new oddball comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Sarah Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave."
— The Washington Post

"Ruhl's zany probe of the razor-thin line between life and death delivers a fresh and humorous look at the times we live in."
— Variety

"[Ruhl] tackles big ideas with a voice that entertains"
— NPR

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
Gordon a dead man	—	—	a dead man
Mrs. Gottlieb Gordon's mother	female	—	Gordon's mother
Hermia Gordon's Widow	—	—	Gordon's Widow
Dwight Gordon's brother	male	—	Gordon's brother
The Other Woman/The Stranger has an accent	—	—	has an accent
Jean a woman	female	—	a woman