It is a testament to the absurdity of modern times that once your card is up and death turns out the light in the glass house you call your body, a part of you continues to live on in wavelength limbo: your cell phone. There are tales of widows continuing to pay their deceased husband’s phone bills if only to be able to continue hearing his outgoing message. Any way you look at it, the phone has become an extension of our bodies; when you’re dead, that phantom limb has the potential to keep growing.
Sarah Ruhl’s play Dead Man’s Cell Phone deals with just that. When a woman begins answering the phone of an expired café patron, she is transformed into a secretary-meets-counselor as she delivers the tragic news to the man’s friends and family in this smart, surrealistic comedy.
Saturdays, Sundays, 2 N 7:45 p.m.; Tuesdays-Fridays, 7:45 p.m. Starts: Sept. 21. Continues through Oct. 13, 2008
