Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Betrayed

March 12th, 2008 · No Comments

my review(s) of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone and George Packer’s Betrayed, directed by Anne Bogart and Pippin Parker, respectively:

photo by Joan Marcus

The quirkiness of Ruhl’s text and of the production as a whole provoked a lot of chuckles but few belly-laughs. After the show, I heard one man pronounce to one of his friends that this was “one of those shows you have to think about.” [...]The end-result is probably not the production that any of these individuals will ultimately be remembered for, but the chance to see them all working together on a genuinely provocative mixture of parody, cultural commentary, and romantic comedy is welcome nevertheless.

photo courtesy of The Culture Project

I have often been critical of such self-congratulation among politically-minded theatre-goers but I must also admit that these experiences serve a purpose. If not for occasional bouts of self-righteousness it would be all too easy for indignation and frustration to turn to despair. Sometimes it feels better to cry angry tears in a room full of the like-minded than alone in front of a computer screen.