A dead man’s cellphone rings incessantly in a café until a troubled woman answers it in this imaginative and darkly comic exploration of love, death and technology by Sarah Ruhl.In a world saturated with technology, stop scrolling and go see the comedy-mystery “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” presented by Theatre UAB from Oct. 15-19.
Theatre UAB is the performance company of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Theatre at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
A woman in a café answers a stranger’s incessantly ringing cellphone. Now she must confront her own assumptions about morality, mortality, redemption and the need to connect in a technology-obsessed world.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. nightly Oct. 15, 16 and 18, with an 8 p.m. start time Oct. 17 and a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday, Oct. 19, in the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center’s Odess Theatre, 1200 10th Ave. South. Tickets are $15; $10 for UAB students. Buy tickets at AlysStephens.org or call 205-975-2787. This play features mature themes and language.
The play, written by Sarah Ruhl, is directed by Santiago Sosa, assistant professor and head of Performance at UAB.
Cellphones, texts, video calls, emails — we are constantly communicating but rarely
listening, Sosa says. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” captures the absurdity and tragedy of this condition with grace, wit and heart.
“It asks us to stop scrolling and see each other, truly and deeply,” Sosa said.
As artificial intelligence, digital legacies and virtual personas become the norm, the questions the play raises about memory, identity and human presence only grow more urgent. Set in 2007, the play walks a delicate line between comedy and spiritual yearning.
“As a director, I am drawn to its whimsical theatricality: phones that never stop ringing, characters who monologue from the beyond, paper raining from the sky and its emotional core, one lonely woman searching for something real in a world of screens,” Sosa said. “It allows for bold visual choices, expressive physical storytelling and richly layered performances.”
That is true especially in the lead role of Jean, who must navigate awkwardness, absurdity and a quiet emotional unraveling, he says.
The cast is Arianna Mendoza-Corona of Helena, Alabama, as A Woman, Jean; Owen McManus of Huntsville, Alabama, as A Dead Man, Gordon; Patrick Wilson of Birmingham, Alabama, as Gordon’s Brother, Dwight; Wyatt Hart of Cumming, Georgia, as Gordon’s Widow, Hermia; Lily Grace Wilmoth of San Antonio, Texas, as The Lounge Singer; Sophia Evangelidis of Manhattan, Kansas, as The Other Woman/The Stranger; Lena Bilbrey of Albertville, Alabama, as Gordon’s Mother, Mrs. Gottlieb; with Charlie Thomas Brownd of Cumming, Georgia, Evelyn Shores of Marietta, Georgia, Alexandria Stone of Hoover, Alabama, and Kris Brooks of St. Petersburg, Florida, as the Ensemble.
Understudies are Georgia Williams of Rainsville, Alabama; Ryder Dean of Pleasant Grove, Alabama; Stella Shipman of Trussville, Alabama; Jared Owens of Fort Payne, Alabama; and Malika Muhammad of Birmingham. Swings are Robert Oakley of Houston, Texas, and Miles Polson of Wicksburg, Alabama.
Stage management is by Selby Whaley of Birmingham, with assistant stage management by Alexander DeWolfe of Hoover and Abby Abruzzese of Birmingham. The crew includes Lily Cameron of Birmingham and Kayla Owens of Tyrone, Georgia, dressers; Nathan Fuller of Helena, scenic and props; Francis Fremin of Thibodaux, Louisiana, sound board/audiovisual operator; Jil Kim of Jasper, Alabama, scenic and props; and Kyle Kratt of The Woodlands, Texas, light board operator.