Dead Man's Cell Phone (TCG Edition)

Sarah Ruhl

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781559363259
• eBook ISBN: 9781559366113
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

“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

“Sarah Ruhl is deliriously imaginative and fearless in her choice of subject matter. She is an original.”—Molly Smith, artistic director, Arena Stage

An 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 playwright Sarah Ruhl, recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play The Clean House. 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 assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world.

Sarah Ruhl’s plays have been produced at theaters around the country, including Lincoln Center Theater, the Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, among others, and internationally. She is the recipient of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (for The Clean House, 2004), the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, and the Whiting Writers’ Award. The Clean House was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists.

PART ONE

scene one

An almost empty café.

A dead man, Gordon, sits on a chair with his back to us.

He doesn’t look all that dead.

He looks—still.

At another table, a woman—Jean—sits, drinking coffee, and writing a thank-you letter.

She has an insular quality, as though she doesn’t want to take up space.

An empty bowl of soup sits on her table.

She looks over at the man.

She stares back at her coffee.

She sips.

A cell phone rings.

It is coming from the dead man’s table.

It rings and rings.

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The caller hangs up and calls again.

Jean looks over at him.

She sighs. The phone keeps ringing.

JEAN

Excuse me—are you going to get that?

No answer from the man.

Would you mind answering your phone?

I’m sorry to bother you.

If you could just—turn your phone—off?

The cell phone rings again.

Jean gets out of her chair and walks over to the man.

Are you ill?

No answer.

Are you deaf?

No answer.

Oh, I’m sorry—

Jean signs in sign language:

Are you deaf?

No response.

The phone rings again.

All right.

Excuse me.

She reaches for the cell phone. She answers it.

Hello? No. This is—you don’t know me.

(To the dead man) Are you Gordon?

No answer.

(To the phone) I don’t know. Can I take a message? Hold on—I don’t have anything to write with.

She sees a pen on the dead man’s table.

(To the dead man) Thank you.

(To the phone) Go ahead.

She writes on a napkin.

How late can he call you?

The voice on the phone begins to sob.

I’m sorry. You sound upset. I’m not—

The caller hangs up.

Gordon?

She touches his shoulder.

Oh—

She holds a spoon under his nose to

see if he’s still breathing.

The phone rings again.

She answers it.

Hello? No, he’s not. Can I take a message?

A pause as the person on the other end makes a very long offer.

No, he doesn’t want one. He already has one.

No, I don’t want one.

I already have one.

Thank you, good-bye.

She hangs up.

She looks around for help.

Help.

She dials 911.

Hello?

I think that there is a dead man sitting next to me.

I don’t know how he died.

I’m at a café.

I don’t know.

Hold on.

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She exits with the cell phone to look at the name of the café and the address.

We just see the dead man and an empty stage.

She returns.

It’s on the corner of Green and Goethe. (Pronounced Go-thee)
Should I stay with him?
There seems to be no one working at this café.
How long?
Thank you.

She hangs up.
A pause.
She looks at him.
His cell phone rings again.

Hello? No, he’s not.
I’m—answering his phone.
Does he have your phone number?

Pause while the woman on the phone says: of course he has my phone number. I am his mother.

The enormity of her loss registers for Jean.

Oh . . . Yes, of course.
He’ll—I’ll leave him the me...

Table of contents

• Praise
• BOOKS BY SARAH RUHL AVAILABLE FROM TCG
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• PRODUCTION HISTORY
• CHARACTERS
• SET
• Epigraph
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• NOTES FOR THE DIRECTOR
• Copyright Page