Reviewed by Tony Annicone

MMAS’s current show is “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl. This dark comedy centers on Jean, a 40 something unmarried woman who works at the Holocaust Museum. She answers a constantly ringing cell phone while sitting in a cafe. She picks it up to answer it and then realizes that the owner of the phone is dead. The man still has the phone in his hand and after picking it up, she starts on a journey to first call 911 and then keep the phone to keep the man alive. Gordon, the deceased man was involved in a unique line of work that unsettles Jean when she learns about it in the second act. Along the way she meets Gordon’s wife, Hermia, his brother, Dwight, his mother, Mrs. Gottlieb and his mistress, Carlotta. She attends the funeral posing as a co-worker, travels to the cafe to meet the mistress, goes to the Gottlieb home to have dinner, then to a stationary store with Dwight and then to heaven and back again as Jean unravels the mystery of the dead man’s cell phone with interesting, unsettling and intriguing information on her journey. Jean reinvents Gordon to bring peace to his family. The moral of the story is to spend less time with your cell phone and more time with your family, friends and loved ones. Becky Price makes her debut as a director at MMAS and does a stellar job with her casting, blocking and her keen eye into the comic elements of the script as well as the weightier ones dealing with unsavory business practices, immoral behavior and people’s unkindness to others.