Craig Wroe plays Gordon in "Dead Man's Cell Phone."

Up-and-coming playwright Sarah Ruhl created the refreshingly modern comedy.

You can't write about the most promising young playwrights in contemporary theater –in any country - without including Sarah Ruhl.

Lucky theatergoers can experience first-hand what all the justifiable fuss – and laughter - is about by seeing her hit comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone, directed by award-winning Rob Ruggiero at Hartford's TheaterWorks.

As usual with TheaterWorks, the all-important casting of just the right actors for each part resulted in an effective ensemble to play Ruhl's delightfully flawed characters that we all love and hate in real life.

And, oh, those cell phones. We can't live with them – sometimes- , and we definitely can't live without them. No one better understands this than playwright Sarah Ruhl; she says it all in Dead Man's Cell Phone, and we strongly react to it emotionally throughout this refreshing modern comedy.

The play opens with a man seated at a table in a café. A woman is deep in thought at an adjacent table. The man's cell phone rings and rings and rings. The man doesn't answer it and the woman gives a scant look at the man. This continues, mind you, without dialog.

We love the show already because the woman's reaction to the situation is very high comedy and made even funnier because she's playing it straight. Ruhl doesn't waste words when silent action says it all in some moments.

We don't want to give away anything about the many delightful and sad twists and turns that drive the plot, but just that one piece to give you an idea that this is no formula sitcom; this is theater at its best.

Well, the irresistible cell phone turns the woman into an obsessive-compulsive who falls willingly into the clutches of the complicated family and professional life of its owner.

The play gets us to examine how the digital age has changed our lives forever. It might make some yearn for the pre-digital world or to just relax and enjoy this IT age.

Sarah Ruhl, writing for the Los Angeles Times, states, "If someone were to ask me why I wrote this strange play Dead Man's Cell Phone, I might be silent, I might be evasive, or I might outright lie.  But imagine that I said that I was interested in the culture of cell phones, in how they have completely altered our emotional, psychic and body states to the point where culture (and perhaps not even evolution) has caught up."

She also told the LA Times that she got the idea for the play in a New York taxi cab while on the way to see the Dali Lama at Radio City Music Hall. We don't care if she is lying or telling the truth, we just love her sense of humor and her way with a play.

Finnerty Steeves plays Jean, the woman who answers the man's (Gordon's) cell phone.  She is a brilliant comedic actor of great range who can make you laugh or cry out loud. Sometimes both at the same time. She was featured in the Off-Broadway premiere of the popular Almost, Maine.  She appeared under Rob Ruggiero's direction in Wonder of the World at Barrington Stage.  Ms. Steeves will be in an upcoming film by Academy-award winning director (American Beauty) Sam Mendes.

As Gordon, the cell-phone's owner, Craig Wroe, is deliciously evil on so many emotional levels. He's another cast member who is a highly talented and skilled actor who can play a full range of characters from high to low comedy, and drama from the classics to soap-opera melodrama. And mime is another of his gifts. He gives a consistently fine performance you will not soon forget.  

Wroe was seen recently in the Off-Broadway premiere of Catch-22 at the Aquila Theatre.  He has been featured in productions at the Roundabout Theatre, Signature Theater and London's Barbican. 

He is the author of three books: An Actor Prepares…To Work in New York City… To Live in New York City, and Living $mart: New York City - The Ultimate Insider's Guide for the Budget Savvy. (A book for everyone who visits or lives in NYC.) 

As most stage actors today, he has been on several Law & Order franchises. His secret desire? Here's a scoop. To do more TV! Not many stage actors, especially New York ones would dare to admit such an ambition. Made of brass, his are.

But he also admits that "I would love to do more Sarah Ruhl plays…in fact, I would happily do a Sarah Ruhl play in HELL!" And the Manhattan-based actor is openly and happily in a long-term relationship with a guy who's not in show business! Craig is one smart actor.

Craig is not only an accomplished actor, but also a nice guy, who helps other actors to cope with the uncertainties of his craft by conducting seminars "The Business Of The Business," which focus on financial survival skills that everyone needs in the fickle world of show biz.

Anne-Lynn Kettles plays Mrs. Gottlieb, the cell man's mother. She never breaks character as the elegant, perfectly groomed and always-right-in-all-things- upper-crust New York matriarch.

A Hartford-based actor, Ms. Kettles has been seen in a half-dozen productions at Hartford Stage and in Hot L Baltimore for the Connecticut Repertory Theatre.  She received an Obie Award for her appearance in Six Characters in Search of an Author, and has appeared in the Emmy Award-winning broadcast of Hartford Stage's All Over on PBS Masterpiece Theater Great Performances. 

Mark Shanahan plays the cell man's brother who has many comedic moments as such and as the matriarch and sister-in-law's faithful and obedient door mat. He falls in love with Jean which provides its share of love and lust.

He has appeared in Tryst and Sedition at the Westport Country Playhouse and on Broadway in The 39 Steps.  He has also been seen Off-Broadway in As Bees in Honey Drown, Philadelphia Here I Come!, and The Internationalist.  He is an Edgar-nominated playwright and co-writer of the screenplay The Troubleshooter for Universal Studios. 

Joey Parsons has the juicy part of the sister-in-law who is a bit slow and also gets to do a drunken scene. What more could an actor in a comedy – or an audience - ask for, and she does it so well.

She returns to TheaterWorks to play The Other Woman and A Stranger.  She played Izzy in TheaterWorks' acclaimed production of David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole under the direction of Rob Ruggiero.  She appeared Off-Broadway in Secrets of a Soccer Mom.  Ms. Parsons' regional credits include Yale Repertory Theatre.

Casting is well done by Pat McCorkle, C.S.A. The superb design team includes Michael Schweikardt (sets), Katherine Hampton Noland (costumes), John Lasiter (lighting), and J. Hagenbuckle (sound).  Production Manager is Michael Lenaghan. They each served the play, director, and actors well with masterful skill and talent for the material.

Dead Man's Cell Phone runs through March 15, 2009 at TheaterWorks, City Arts on Pearl, 233 Pearl Street in downtown Hartford (wheelchair accessible).  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.

TheaterWorks' elegant new main lobby opens 90 minutes prior to all curtain times for audiences to enjoy works from the New Britain Museum of American Art and bistro cuisine and wine from bin228 Café and Wine Bar.  www.theaterworks.org. (860) 527-7838.

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