Back from DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE. Interesting and odd to see two completely, and I mean completely, different productions of the same new play in the space of eight months.
DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE SPOILERS
In D.C. at Woolly Mammoth, the title's Dead Man was luminously loathsome, holding forth from the cafe table at which he died earlier in the show. I think I may have been seeing the first or second performance of the actor playing the Dead Man here, and it is a very humanizing portrayal, and he pulls out all the stops standing center stage, not at his death table. Strange how after seeing the play only once before, I was convinced that loathsome through and through (the way it was played the first time I saw the play) was the way the character must be played - if he's not rotten to the core, where is the (momentary) sadness in our heroine falling and giving up her life for him? But only the playwright knows what she really wanted, and this fellow is an extremely talented replacement for their NYC first choice who had to leave to shoot a film.