Dead Man's Cell Phone (8 page)

MRS. GOTTLIEB

A lot has happened since you've been here, Jean. Hermia has had an offer to return to the stage.

 

JEAN

The stage?

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

The ice follies. Hermia used to be a world-class dramatic skater, but Gordon thought it was undignified for his wife to dance on the ice wearing loud makeup. So she left the follies for him. Let that be a lesson to you, Jean. Never leave off follies for a man. Well, now the follies have her back. She's on tour. Denmark, then San Jose.

And I for one am happy for her. Dwight has been using his letterpress to publish books of subversive political theory and poetry—haven't you, Dwight? He's on all the government watch lists.

 

JEAN

But I've only been gone a day—

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

No no Jean you've been gone months.

 

JEAN

That's not possible.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Oh, yes. And Gordon's mistress—Carlotta—she's taken over his business—yes—she got hold of his old business contacts somehow and away she went.

JEAN

It was her!

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

He left her nothing, you see, in the will—and she'd been with him twelve years. Gordon should have been more generous. Everyone's moved on. Except for me.

 

He was my only son. That is to say—he was my first son. The first sometimes feels like the only—you must know that from your own sexual experiences, or are you a virgin Jean?

 

DWIGHT

Mother! What would make you feel better, Jean?

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

A cold compress, a quiche?

 

JEAN

I think I'd like a steak actually.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

A steak? I thought you didn't eat meat.

 

JEAN

I'm starving.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Carmen! PUT A STEAK ON THE FIRE!
Rare?

 

JEAN

Yes!

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

RARE!

You know, I've tried to call Gordon but his voice is no longer on the out-going message. I call his old number, and no voice. And somehow—now—I feel he's truly dead.

 

JEAN

I have something to tell you, Mrs. Gottlieb.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Well then don't stand on ceremony, dear.

 

JEAN

Gordon's gone up the pipeline to spend eternity on your planet since it seems you loved him most.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

What?

 

JEAN

It's hard to explain. You won't understand until you die.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

You've seen Gordon?

 

JEAN

Oh, yes.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

That's where you've been?

 

JEAN

Yes.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

And he's waiting for me there? In heaven?

 

JEAN

It's a kind of heaven, I guess. There are these—laundromats.

 

DWIGHT

Laundromats?

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Does he have to do his own laundry?

 

JEAN

Yes he has to do it himself now.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Is he punished?

 

JEAN

Not really. Now he's with you. Or—he's waiting for you.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

For me alone?

 

JEAN

Yes.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

He has no one else to console him?

 

JEAN

No.

 

MRS. GOTTLIEB

Gordon! Gordon, I'm coming!

 

Together we'll play all the games we played when you were little. Hush, little wormy, on my arm, we'll get a spider to calm you down! Gordon, wait for your mother! It won't be long now!

 

JEAN

Wait, don't!

The fire—the steak on the fire—oh no—the pit—
it's such a large barbeque in the backyard—
Aren't you going to stop her?

 

DWIGHT

No. They'll be happy together.

She always did love him best.

 

JEAN

So that's that?

 

DWIGHT

Good-bye, mother. Kiss my brother for me and be happy.

 

JEAN

Oh, Dwight.

I want to make sure we get on the same planet when we die.

I don't want to end up with my garden or my dog for all time. Let's start loving each other right now, Dwight—not a mediocre love, but the strongest love in the world, absolutely requited.

I want to be selfish with you.

I want to love you because of and not in spite of your accidental charms.

I want to love you when you burn the toast and when your shoes are awful and when you say the wrong thing so that we know and all the omniscient things of heaven know too—let's love each other absolutely.

 

DWIGHT

Then let's do it, Jean. Let's love each other better than the worthies did.

 

JEAN

Who are the worthies?

 

DWIGHT

It's from a poem.

 

JEAN

Did you write it?

 

DWIGHT

No John Donne did. I'll take you to my letterpress and show you.

 

JEAN

Now?

 

DWIGHT

Not right now. Now we kiss. And the lights go out.

 

I kept a record of conversations I overheard on cell phones as I was writing this play to use as found text in the cell phone ballet. The notion was that fragments from the ruin float up and meet Jean—and that they are almost beautiful. The problem is that when you record found text with actors' voices, it no longer feels authentic, because the voice itself is not found. You might then consider going around and recording people's overheard cell phone conversations. Or use messages that have already been left on your phone. If you choose to use my own text to layer over the music of the spheres, here are the most useful found bits of text that I've incorporated into different productions:

You might consider layering these bits into a song, or spoken over a song, having them vaguely sung, or not, having non-actors record them, finding bits of your own found text, or translating some or all of it into Japanese and various other languages. And if all else fails, cut the cell phone ballet and keep the repeated voices of Jean and Mrs. Gottlieb. It rankles me to be this vague, but the cell phone ballet depends so much on the sound designer, director, and all the rest of it. As for choreography, there might be a simple
pas de deux
while people are on their cell phones, or the movement might be as simple as people walking through the rain carrying umbrellas while talking on cell phones. One thing I learned is that if the movement is complex, the music and voices should be simple; if the voices are complex, the movement should be simple. I wish I could tell you there is one definitive way to crack this oyster but it's up to your collective imagination.

 

I think they are about finding one simple gesture—Jean looks toward a window—and suspends—and the lights imperceptibly shift. They are about the solitary figure inside the landscape or architecture. They are about being alone inside of or in relation to the modern.

 

 

 

You might want Gordon to speak actual Mandarin instead of English when he says, “I said in Mandarin”; here is one translation of “you don't want people to know about your old line of work, neither do I”:

 

 

 

Translation generously provided by Jason Rudd.

 

 

 

There is a great deal of silence and empty space in this play, but the pauses should not be epic.

 

There might be an extended fight sequence in the airport in Johannesburg as they struggle for the gun.

 

I call Jean's stories confabulations, I never call them lies . . .

 

The paper houses that fall on Jean and Dwight at the end of Part One should ideally be made of high quality or handmade paper. Go to a paper store and touch the paper.

Transitions are fluid. Space is fluid. There is not a lot of stuff on the stage.

 

Enjoy yourself.

SARAH RUHL's plays include
Dead Man's Cell Phone
(Helen Hayes' Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical),
The Clean House
(Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2005; The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004),
Passion Play
(The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, a Helen Hayes Awards nomination for best new play),
Eurydice
,
Melancholy Play
,
Orlando
,
Demeter in the City
and
Late: a cowboy song
. Her plays have been produced at Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Madison Repertory Theatre, the Piven Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Wilma Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Yale Repertory Theatre, among others. Her plays have also been produced in London, Germany, Australia, Canada and Israel, and have been translated into Polish, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Korean and German. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. In 2003, she received a Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award and a Whiting Writers' Award. She is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Ms. Ruhl is a member of 13P and New Dramatists.

Dead Man's Cell Phone
is copyright © 2008 by Sarah Ruhl

 

Dead Man's Cell Phone
is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

 

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