Dead Man’s Cell Phone

Jean (Jess Waterhouse) has just finished her soup in a café when she loses patience with a man sitting nearby (Bruce Hardie) for failing to do anything about his continually ringing mobile phone. Then she realises he is dead. In her fluster, and evidently because she makes poor decisions on the spur of the moment, she answers the phone for him — and continues to do so, even pretending that she knew the dead man before he died. In the process of speaking for him, she learns that his name was Gordon. And, after meeting Gordon’s mother, Mrs Gottlieb (Elaine Noon); his widow, Hermia (Victoria Tyrell Dixon); and his brother, Dwight (also played by Bruce Hardie), Jean realises that she should fly to Johannesburg in order to prevent wastage of something Gordon had intended to deliver.

Although this unlikely sequence of events becomes in some ways a little less unlikely on stage, Jean’s behaviour does of course raise a lot of questions, many of which fall gently to Earth with the curtain.

Many amusing moments arose either from simple misunderstandings or from Jean’s outlandish decisions, and the production took good advantage of them. If Jean’s manner, which could be a little distracting in its abruptness and rapidity, didn’t add anything to those moments, it didn’t seem to greatly affect others’ timing. Performances all round were engaging, and Elaine Noon’s performance as the matter-of-fact bereaved mother was outstanding. Victoria Tyrell Dixon showed brilliantly the conflicting feelings that blew through Gordon’s widow, Hermia, as she dealt with the loss of her husband, her uncertainty as to Jean’s role in Gordon’s life, and the horror of Jean’s seeming resurrection of Gordon’s insalubrious career.  And Bruce Hardie presented convincingly different personas as Gordon and his brother, Dwight.

Audio was well handled — almost every line in the play was clearly discernible — and lighting was remarkably effective in transporting us to another realm when needed. The many alterations to the set between scenes occurred with minimal incursion on the audience’s consciousness, and props — the eponymous mobile phone especially — withstood their treatment well.  Entrances and exits were perfect, and the production operated to bring the play to a satisfying conclusion without undue jarring notes.

John P. Harvey

Image: [L–R] Jess Waterhouse, as Jean, and Bruce Hardie, as Gordon, in Dead Man's Cell Phone. Photographer: Kate Harris.