Dead Man’s Cell Phone performs at Bush Theatre

Cast and crew from The Bush Theatre performed their last showing of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” on Oct. 17.

This production, written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Timothy D. Connors, included cast members Katrina Behrmann, Daniel Martin, Shannon Bonney, Katheryn Monge, Kevin Broomfield and Jacqueline Voice.

Within just the first act, the Bush was filled with laughter from audience members at the comedic fate of a man named Gordon, the people in his life and what came after.

The show opens with a woman named Jeanie played by actress Katrina Behrmann sitting at a café enjoying what audience members are later informed to be Lobster Bisque when she hears the ringing of a cell phone from a man at the next table.

When asking the man to please turn off the phone, she finds he does not seem to be hearing her. Eventually she realizes that the man had died and his name was Gordon, played by Daniel Martin.

The plot thickens once Jeanie develops a relationship with Gordon’s mother, his newly widowed wife, and even his brother, who by the end of the play, she ends up falling in love with.

The production got an overall positive reaction from the audience. The tickets each cost $5.50 and the duration of the show was found reasonable.

“The ticket price was not anything outrageous in comparison with how much money actually goes into the production. You have to think about it, they’ve gotta make some money,” Matt Convis, Education major and first-timer at the Bush, said.

Convis also comments on the duration of the play and said that everything lasted just as long as it should have, with the overall performance developing and ending where it needed to. However Convis as well as others thought that the duration was quite fast in comparison with other productions.

“They probably could have slowed some of it down. The first act went by so quickly!” Lacee Mason, an undecided freshman said, who was seeing the play for her acting I class.

The overall storyline was held in high regard by audience members. Many of them remarked on the plot and its developments.

“As far as it being a comedy, they took something that would normally be found dark and sad, and made it into something humorous,” Convis said. “I didn’t necessarily laugh at a lot of things, but I did find a lot of things funny.”

The only ounce of problem would be the understanding of the plot, or lack thereof.

“I thought the play was a bit misdirected,” Kellea Krueger, a History and Political science major, said. “The emotions were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Although not everyone’s acting was rated equally in the production, the consensus says that those who came and saw Dead Man’s Cell Phone will soon be coming back to the Bush ready to see more shows.