“Dead Man’s Cell Phone”
Written by Sarah Ruhl
Showing: Steppenwolf Upstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., through July 27.
Tickets: $20-$68
Contact: (312) 335-1650; steppenwolf.org

By Web Behrens

Contributing writer

It’s unfortunate when the best thing a play has going for it is its title—although, to be fair, “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is a killer. With an appellation like that, you’d be forgiven for expecting Sarah Ruhl’s new work to be a thriller or a moody noir piece. It’s neither, yet in fits and spurts this fanciful but convoluted comedy seems to wish it were.

The show kicks off with a scene in a seemingly deserted café where our protagonist, Jean, initially finds herself irritated by the refusal of the man at a nearby table to answer his phone. Of course, it turns out that Gordon’s dead, and Jean appoints herself his posthumous guardian angel. She quickly becomes bizarrely attached to this stranger’s phone, using it to insert herself into the lives of Gordon’s loved ones. As she gets to know them, Jean invents increasingly outlandish stories about Gordon expressing his love for them before he died, though he uttered nary a word.

That’s actually a fine premise for an oddball comedy, which could permit a playwright to muse about big topics like grief and the meaning of life. Ruhl sort of gets around to that, according to her own quirky recipe. She peppers her play with often outré stock characters: The redoubtable gothic mother, the saucy alcoholic wife, the femme fatale mistress. In order for this increasingly absurd dynamic to click, the audience needs to be able to identify with and root for Jean. Indeed, Ruhl and director Jessica Thebus seem eager to present us with a nerdy but likable Everywoman—but, as manifested by actress Polly Noonan (a favorite performer of Ruhl’s), we get a frumpy Renee Zellweger impression. It’s hard to say if Jean, as written, could ever come off successfully, but Noonan’s take sure doesn’t do the trick. She’s all dopey quirks, no spunk and no charm.

Also firmly planted in the show’s deficit column is the ugly, vacant set design by Scott Bradley. For a show that moves from Chicago to Johannesburg to some strange heaven, it’s a shame that the generic set looks like it was borrowed from a high-school production (though the miniature-house luminaries provide a transient moment of magic). On the other hand, Linda Roethke’s costume designs embrace the outlandishness of the characters in the best way, and the rest of the cast—particularly Molly Regan and the ever-reliable Mary Beth Fisher—have a heyday with their roles. Meanwhile, Marc Grapey (Gordon in the afterlife) nails the lengthy monologue that kicks off Act Two, but Ruhl’s rough-draft of a play can’t really be rescued by any cast, no matter how talented. Only extensive script revisions could save this “Cell Phone” from repeatedly losing its signal.