“Is this funny? I think it’s sad.”

That comment was murmured from one audience member to her seatmate after other audience members chuckled at the recent Mother’s Day matinee performance of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The Raven Players production runs through May 26 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg.

It’s a fair question. The title, which reads like it was ripped off of a modern pulp fiction novel, might make you think one thing, the play itself another. The truth is it has moments of both humor and pathos.

Jean (Jeanette Seisdedos) is sitting at a table at a non-descript café when a cell phone goes off at the table next to hers. The gentleman at the table (Thomas Gibson) appears to be ignoring it much to Jean’s consternation. Thinking perhaps the phone owner may be deaf, she gets up to clarify the situation only to discover (and there’s no need for a spoiler alert here as it’s in the damn title) that the gentleman is dead.

On an impulse, Jean picks up the phone and answers the call. Rather than tell the caller of the gentleman’s unfortunate passing, she merely responds that he’s “unavailable”. Other calls come in, and she continues to obfuscate the situation. She eventually calls for an ambulance, but keeps the cell phone.

Possession of the device leads Jean to forging (in every sense of the word) relationships with the dead man’s mother (Lynn Stevenson), his wife (Mary DeLorenzo), his female friend of an undetermined nature (Skylar Saltz) and, most importantly for Jean, his stationery-loving brother (Matt Farrell).  

This all happens in a fairly linear manner, but when the second act opens with a monologue by the corpse, a trip to purgatory, and a choreographed number featuring the entire cast, all bets are off as to what the hell is really going on here.

The play, which premiered in 2007, may have been a prescient warning that despite all of the information that now can be held in one’s hand, there’s a price to pay in the disconnection from actual human contact.

Director Diane Bailey has a cast of Raven regulars at work here with Farrell’s performance of note as the brother of his mother’s “only son”. Skylar Saltz has some fun at the “other” woman and a “business” associate of the dead man.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone is an odd play that will not be to everyone’s taste. If you do see it and can figure out what the hell the ballet is about, give me a call. My cell phone number is [number redacted].

‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’ runs through May 26 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater, 115 North St., Healdsburg. Thurs – Sat, 7:30 pm; Sun, 2 pm. $10–$25.  707.433.6335. raventheater.org.

Photos by Ray Mabry

This review originally appeared in an edited version in the The Healdsburg Tribune and North Bay Bohemian.