AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

A man is dead, but his cell phone is ringing. Do you answer it?

The choice one woman makes and the resulting consequences in her life and in those of the dead man’s family and acquaintances are the crux of Sarah Ruhl’s dark dramedy Dead Man’s Cell Phone playing at TheaterWorks in Hartford.

Shy and lifeless Jean (Finnerty Steeves) decides to answer the call and makes it her life’s goal to comfort the loved ones left behind by Gordon (Craig Wroe), a man she’s never met, but who dies suddenly at the table next to her at a café. Using the phone, Jean meets his contacts and discovers that none of the people in Gordon’s life felt like “loved” ones, so she fabricates stories, telling them that Gordon’s last actions and words were full of love for them.

She comforts the women in his life: Gordon’s mother, Mrs. Gottlieb (Anne-Lynn Kettles), an intimidating highbrow; his frustrated wife, Hermia (Lee Heinz), who gave up a career with the Ice Capades to marry him and who has been faking orgasms with Gordon for years; his mistress and another mysterious woman (both played by Joey Parsons), who works with Gordon in his human-organ trafficking business

Younger brother, Dwight (Mark Shanahan), who lived in Gordon’s shadow, finds he and Jean share a fetish for the expensive stationery he sells and they quickly become romantically involved until the cell phone calls Jean away.

All of the performances, directed by Rob Ruggiero, are strong with Kettles’ neurotic Mrs. Gottlieb scary enough to send you running for cover at the word “mother.” Wroe turns in a dynamite monologue in an otherworldly visit from Gordon.

Ruhl’s sharp dialogue, seasoned with crude and satirical wit, connects cell phone metaphors with questions about privacy, the consequences of decisions we make and whether we’re connected to the network of humanity or have an unlisted number. Unfortunately, the viewer is asked to put reality on hold as the plot takes some credulity straining turns and Dead Man’s Cell Phone loses its signal in the second act, when preachy conversation-interrupting “text messages” about morality and the afterlife intrude, and Jean rushes to South Africa to offer one of her kidneys to Gordon’s black-market contact. After these events and others, Ruhl only phones in a disappointing “let’s-wrap-it-up-now” ending.

Michael Schweikardt’s sterile white tile and acrylic set combines with lighting by John Lasiter to provide a backdrop for the interiors, exteriors and mystical settings in which the characters find themselves. Katherine Hampton Noland’s understated costumes quickly define characters, we just can’t believe most of what they’re doing and saying.

---- Lauren Yarger

Dead Man’s Cell Phone plays at City Arts on Pearl (233 Pearl Street, Hartford) through March 15. Performances are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. General admission tickets are $37 for weeknights and matinees; $47 for Friday and Saturday evenings; center reserved seats $11 extra; and college student rush tickets are $11 more. Call (860) 527-7838 or visit www.theaterworkshartford.org.

The story of four blue-collar boys from New Jersey who cross over from the wrong side of the tracks and travel all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has the audience cheering, stomping and clapping as Jersey Boys plays The Bushnell in Hartford.

More than 30 tunes made popular by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are featured in the show, which won the 2006 Tony for Best Musical. The tour comes in a package that does justice to the original production, including its fast-changing sets (Klara Zieglerova), 609 lighting cues (Howell Binkley , lighting design), video projections (Michael Clark), 196 costumes designed by Jess Goldstein and tight choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

While the glitzy show, originally directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff, is visually and musically stimulating, the real reason for its success is the excellent book from Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, which tells the story of Frankie Valli (Joseph Leo Bwarie), Bob Gaudio (Josh Franklin), Tommy DeVito (Matt Bailey) and Nick Massi (Steve Gouveia) as they live, fight, love and support each other on the road to becoming the sensation of the Four Seasons. The book serves as a natural frame into which to showcase the group’s songs, instead of as an invented plot around which popular songs are scattered, as had become the formula for other hopeful “jukebox musicals” on Broadway following the popularity of Mamma Mia!. Music Director Ron Melrose’s stealth, but slight quickening of the tempo of the songs also enhances the experience by making oldies like “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Oh, What a Night,” “Walk Like a Man,” Sherry” and Dawn (Go Away)” appeal to contemporary audiences.

The principals, along with Jonathan Hadley as Bob Crewe, who put lyrics to Gaudio’s music, are strong and lead fine performances by a cast of 19 (which includes some musicians who appear on stage) with some members playing up to 17 roles. Bwarie has a fine falsetto and performed the Valli role in Las Vegas. Gouveia was a member of the original Broadway cast and has been with the show since its premiere at the LaJolla Playhouse.

--- Lauren Yarger

Jersey Boys plays at The Bushnell (166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT) through Feb. 22. Performance times are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 7:30 pm, Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm and Sunday at 2pm and 7:30pm. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased by calling 860-987-5900 or by visiting www.bushnell.org.

Go over to ATWClips, and you'll see a new category:

"Show, Theater, Press Blogs"

If you know of a theater company or show blog that should be included - please leave a comment or drop a line with the URL and I'll add it into the daily mix

--- Andy Propst

Yesterday, critics on both coasts are talking about how the new musical Minsky's can transport audiences back to the first part of the 20th century. Today, I'd like to take up their lead and briefly discuss a trio of discs from New World Records that can take music theater lovers even further back in time to the dawn of the 20th century. This trio of discs features The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra under the direction of Rick Benjamin, and either singly, or better yet, as a collection, they open a door to a sound that is both somehow familiar and also marvelously refreshing.

The newest of the discs is George M. Cohan – You're a Grand Old Flag, and it features the orchestra, along with vocalists Colin Pritchard and Bernadette Boerckel, delivering over a dozen of Cohan's tunes. On the familiar side here, "Flag" contains such perennial favorites as "Mary's a Grand Old Name," "Give My Regards to Broadway" and ""Over There." The disc also contains songs that have disappeared from consciousness like "The Eyes of Youth See the Truth" (from The Cohan Review of 1918) and the ragtime incidental music from Popularity, a show from 1906. The disc is rounded out with one track featuring Cohan himself. He's not performing any of his music, but rather, he's delivering a speech, and in it, there is some terrific insight into the man, his stagecraft and the body of work that he created.

This final track alone might be worth the price of the disc, but really, each track is a little gem – a way for listeners to retreat nearly a 100 years (and in cases like "Popularity" even more. The orchestra has attempted to recreate the pit sound that audiences might have heard when these songs were first performed, and for anyone, like me, who's grown up on the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy or the musical George M! and the bombast Cohan's music gets in these two biographical treatments, "Flag" is a complete surprise. There is a delicacy to the music, even an airiness. Maybe that's because there's an even balance of strings and brass in the orchestra, or maybe it's the presence of the piccolo and bells. Whatever the reason, the impishness and the youthful exuberance that's heard on "Flag" is absolutely captivating – as are the thorough liner notes, which cover not only Cohan's biography and include information about each of the songs, but also some fascinating historical insight into the sound that makes this disc so unique…and invaluable.

Equally delectable for ear are two earlier releases from New World Records and The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra are Black Manhattan: Theatre and Dance Music of James Reese Europe, Will Marion Cook, and Members of the Legendary Clef Club and From Barrelhouse to Broadway: The Musical Odyssey of Joe Jordan. On these two discs, you'll find a wealth of ragtime music jauntily springing to life anew nearly a century after it was first heard. To name favorites on either of the discs would probably be meaningless, since most of the titles on these two discs would be as unfamiliar to readers as they were to me. What's astounding on both discs is how eminently enjoyable the music is, and how diverse the sound of the era can be. (It doesn't all sound like Scott Joplin!).

As with the Cohan disc, the liner notes deftly explore an era and slice of music history that has widely become forgotten. For instance, who knew that before the Harlem Renaissance, a small stretch of West 53rd Street was home to many of the pre-eminent black composers and performers of the early 20th century?

I really cannot say enough about how much I've enjoyed these three discs, and I'm betting that most music theater lovers will too.

---- Andy Propst