"Dead Man's Cell Phone" at SBU

Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone is not my favorite play – I find it unremarkable and overrated. So I went in to Stony Brook University’s production (directed by Deb Mayo) with some trepidation – I wanted to like it, since some of my friends are acting in it, but my experience with this particular script has been less than satisfactory. That said, both of the seemingly mutually exclusive things I looked forward to happened – I sincerely enjoyed this performance of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and at the same time I was able to put my finger on why exactly the script doesn’t resonate with me.

This play is about, to my current understanding, the alienating effect that constant cell phone use has on our society. By being constantly in touch with those who are not physically present, we disembody ourselves – an effect metaphored by death in this pay – and we yearn for the love of those in our actual proximity. This sustained loneliness results in social awkwardness. The accumulative impact of this morbidity and awkwardness is a sense of dark humor in Sarah Ruhl’s play. This humor comes across beautifully in SBU’s production. Nancee Moes, playing Jean, carries the play by embodying the full spectrum of morbid awkwardness, from falling in love with a dead man (Diogo Martins) and adopting his cell phone to keep him alive, to falling in love with his less charismatic brother Dwight (Eric Michael Klouda) in his dark and lonely stationary store. Klouda brought his character’s awkwardness alive by playing a clear objective in throwing himself at Jean. The situation in which he plays this action makes his character read as pathetically passionate, which works in favor of the play. Victoria DiCarlo was brilliant Mrs. Gottlieb – she plays her character’s need for constant attention to great comic effect, stealing the show in the scenes that feature her.

This cast did a fantastic job of bringing the best out of what I take to be a severely flawed script. This is my second time seeing Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and I wasn’t able to put together an account of what this play’s driving at until about halfway through this production. After the initial laughs at the awkwardness of Moes’ and DiCarlo’s characters, the play becomes a snoozer until the very end of the first act, when Dwight asks Jean if she loved his brother. “Oh!” the realization hits me, “That’s why she took his cell phone! I get it.” Unfortunately, my previous experience seeing the play was so unremarkable that I forgot that Sarah Ruhl makes it very explicit at the very end of the play that that’s what’s going on. Since this is the second time I’ve found a good chunk of the play a snoozer (and, to this cast’s credit, this time it was only a chunk) I have to wonder how many others have the same problem. As if that’s not enough, Ruhl falls into the self-indulgent trap that lies smack in the way of most playwrights, and ended the play a scene after it was finished. Honestly, we don’t need the epilogue telling us how things turned out for Mrs. Gottlieb. She’s fun, but the play’s not about her.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone is taking a break for Thanksgiving, but will return in Staller Center Theatre 1 on December 1^st through December 4^th at 8PM on Thursday through Saturday, and at 2PM on Sunday. It’s worth a look or two (some parts are double cast) for the sake of this brilliant cast. However, it’s a poor choice for the Stony Brook Theatre Department. There are so many plays out there that need to be done in college theatre because they’re still too experimental for the main stream. To do the same play as everybody else and their dog, especially one as flawed as Dead Man’s Cell Phone, is a disservice to the capabilities of the Theatre Department, and to the craft at large.

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Closing

Ranae Hedman

I tried things a little differently last night. Just before I left, I was listening to Jetty Rae on YouTube and got all inspired to be a musician. So I started playing on my box drum that I’m borrowing from my mom. I packed it with me to the theater, and when house opened, I was the

house music!

Ranae Hedman, Waylon Lenk

The show went fantastically again, and the talk back was once again longer than the show itself. People’s concerns about it maybe moving too fast in parts, script-wise, were apparent to me last night – it did feel like a race across the continent, as opposed to the 20 days one story says it actually took Pihnêefich. Afterwards, during the talk-back, we were able to focus in on where the play needs to be developed. I need to further develop Chris’ characters – the child, the Messiah, and Makataimeshkiakiak – and I need to explore the possibilities of setting it in a class room. After all, the Schoolteacher is the glue that holds Coyote Hunts the Sun together. And, to Ranae’s credit, she makes the role happen. I asked if maybe I should change her stories into the kind that exist in most text-books. Reidy Estevez, one of my students, showed me quite clearly that the answer is “no.” The Schoolteacher’s and Pihnêefich’s tellings of “Coyote and the Sun” form the bookends to the play and the journey – without her telling the colonial histories, there is little or no excuse for her to tell the pikvah.

Chris Petty

Waylon Lenk, Ranae Hedman

So what’s next for Coyote Hunts the Sun? Well, rewrites. I need to explore and develop the characters and their worlds. There are two stories that it seems I need to tell that don’t quite fit into Coyote Hunts the Sun. One is the Ghost Dance story – as I’ve mentioned earlier, I have a pretty strong bias against that particular ceremony, and what that tells me is that I need to learn more about it so that I’m not walking around carrying bad thoughts about those that did it. The second is the cannibal story that I try to tell during the Messiah scene. It was the first scene that I wrote for this play, but I’m realizing more and more that it isn’t part of Coyote Hunts the Sun, but is obviously a story that I feel compelled to tell. I need to tell it separately and get it out of the work at hand.

Ranae Hedman

It was a fun process, and now I have the post show blues. But while this phase of the project is over, we certainly haven’t seen the last of Coyote Hunts the Sun!

Waylon Lenk


 



Waylon Lenk



Ranae Hedman

Waylon Lenk, Chris Petty, Ranae Hedman, Darci Faye







"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Opening

That’s right folks! Coyote Hunts the Sun opened last night! Darci and I got there early to run lights, and that went pretty smoothly. She just needed a little more practice. Then we took a little break to eat dinner and set up the marquee and fold programs, and then Ranae and Chris got there. We ran through it with lights and only one hitch – Chris accidently got locked outside. So we ended up taping the locks down on the doors.

When we finished, we started to do a little photo shoot. I took the first picture, and then the room went dark. Apparently five lights, a laptop and a projector are too much for our poor little Cabaret, and we blew a fuse. We rushed to plug everything that needed to be plugged in to sockets that still had juice, and we tried to pick the lock to the breaker room. We couldn’t, though. I guess that’s I new skill I need to learn on YouTube.

But we got everything rigged up in the nick of time, we got Chris’ stigmata on, and we opened the house (special thanks to Erin Treat for agreeing to be house manager at the last minute).

I killed the house lights, and Darci brought up the stage lights. I gave my little intro about the play, and Native Arts Forum at Wompowog (of which this is the flagship piece – more about that later) and then we started.

Half an hour later we finished. The coyote was cooked and the sun was risen. We took a five, and then started the talk back.

What an informative event! I realized that Coyote Hunts the Sun is not even close to finished. Some of the things that bothered people – like the non-linearity and layered voices – are things that they’re not used too, but that I loved. They’re staying for sure. But I do appreciate that things moved fast, and that combined with the layering makes it easy to get lost. When I start rewriting, I’m definitely going to take more time to develop relationships between Pihnêefich, Wovoka, Makataimeshkiakiak and the Schoolteacher. When I was talking to the two Natives in the audience (that I knew of) afterwards, they brought up that the Schoolteacher was doing exactly what schoolteachers should do – they should talk about the Wounded Knee Massacre and the boarding schools – these are things that the dominant culture has a responsibility to address and take a responsibility for. In the new, longer version then, the Schoolteacher is going to have to tell the stories that we find in history books. You know, how Indians are in the first chapter and then poof! we’re gone.

This version is going remarkably well, though, and I’m really grateful to have Darci, Ranae and Chris on board. But I am finding out where this piece needs to go next, and I can’t wait to learn more tonight.

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Rehearsal Log, Tech

Last night was our great big tech rehearsal, which went very smoothly. For the first hour, Chris and Darci and I focused the lights and got Darci set up with the light board. It’s her first time running lights ever, so that’s pretty exciting. She’s kind of nervous, but I’m confident that she’ll get it. At 8PM, when Ranae got there, we worked through all the tech cues, and then ran through it cue to cue. Darci’s still getting to know the light board, and, like I say, she’s nervous. But I know that once she familiarizes herself with it a little more, she’ll get confident and it’ll be a breeze.

The lights themselves are awesomely badass. We aren’t messing around with levels, so the high contrasts, along with the dramatic angles in which the lights are focused, give Coyote Hunts the Sun a film noire look. Combine that with the reds and blacks of our costumes, and I feel like I’m in an indigenous Nosferatu or something. The projections look cool, skewed and keystoned against the black cinderblock wall. The whole affect really augments the raw and driving atmosphere of Coyote’s hunt across the continent, and the conflict between him and the Schoolteacher.

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Poster

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Rehearsal Log, Dress Rehearsal

Last night we held our first and only dress rehearsal! And I remembered all my lines! Running them before with everybody helped. While we ran them, we painted stigmata on to Chris’ hands for the Messiah scene. He looks super badass/creepy in his black cowboy boots with his black shirt buttoned all the way up.

So we ran lines, and then we ran the show, which happened without a hitch. Darci didn’t even have any notes! She is getting nervous for tech though, because that’s going to be her one shot to learn the light-board. We’ll figure all that out on Wednesday.

Adding the costumes did give me some more information about the play, besides just how cool Chris looks as the Messiah. It didn’t seem to affect anything with Ranae – she always dresses like a teacher anyways – but adding in my hat gives me a good bit of business in the Messiah scene. In it, I have a line, “I have to go find the sun,” that I usually say as I go out the door. Chris’ line, “The sun? The sun will come in the morning. Wait here a while with me,” doesn’t seem to have the force to stop me. That’s always been an awkward part. But having the cap to put back on before I go outside does give me something to do before I open the door.

The blanket that Chris and I wear has a pretty cool effect, at least on him. I haven’t looked at the footage I took last night, so I don’t know how it looks on me. But it adds a substantial bulk to Chris in the Makataimeshkiakiak scene that makes him imposing without him having to really do anything about it.

All in all, a good rehearsal, and one that I filmed! Look forward to the commercial that I’ll be putting out on my YouTube channel (“WaylonLenk”) later today!

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Rehearsal Log, November 4

This baby has legs! Today we ran this sucker through twice, but before that, Becky and Christina helped Chris and I move the curtain across the space to create our backstage, and we set up the chairs. The space is what it’s going to look like now!

Then we did it for Becky and Christina. Man, that felt good to do it for new people! Ranae said it felt the same for her. B & C couldn’t get over how well she’s doing. They said this idea I had to give her lesson plans instead of lines is sheer genius! It definitely seems like Ranae and Darci are people that we’re all going to be keeping in mind when we cast future stuff.

After our first run, Darci had Chris and I run our lines for the Messiah and Makataimeshkiakiak scenes. It’s a little obscene how poorly I’m doing with memorizing two of the lines I wrote: “It smells good” and – shoot, I can’t remember the other one. Chris and I were a little afraid of Darci when we started doing it again, so the Messiah scene was kind of halting, but other than that the run went well. We’re down to 26 minutes now, and it’s feeling like nuclear fusion! Or fission! Whichever’s cooler. We just decided that before tomorrow night’s rehearsal, Chris and I are going to have to run lines. But once we’re running it, we just have to let it roll.

My Reply to Vickie Ramirez

Here are my thoughts on non-Natives using Native images in their plays written in response to Vickie Ramirez at The Public. Her thoughts on the subject are on their blog, which you can reach here:

http://publictheaterny.blogspot.com/2011/11/manifest-destinys-my-co-pilot.html

Ms. Ramirez,

It seems like your argument hinges on two suppositions. The first I question, the second I take issue with. Like Mr. Yellow Robe, I certainly mean this in the spirit of dialogue, and I appreciate and respect your bravery in publishing words you recognize to be controversial in the Native community.

Your first supposition is that the plays you list, in which outsiders co-opt our images, have “inspired plays to answer them.” This is my question. I don’t know what those plays are; I’m sure to my detriment.

Your second supposition is that those plays have made “the pantheon of Native plays…richer for the dialogue.” This is where I take issue. I certainly have not been in Native theater for as long as Mr. Yellow Robe or many others who are perhaps reading this, so please correct me if my facts are wrong, but I have a sense that part of the need for a Native theater came from us needing to reclaim our images. I know how bad I feel after watching movies like The Searchers, and I can only imagine how my grandparents’ generation felt being inundated with those images. By your logic, it seems that we are to say that films like The Searchers or Apache are worthwhile works of art in spite of the psychological damage that they caused and cause. These movies, as well as the plays you mention, are products of colonial views of colonized peoples. Are we to say that colonialism and its incumbent genocide are good things, since without them the Native Renaissance could not have happened? I think not.

We Native peoples are fighting aggressively in the fields of politics and law to repatriate our homelands and cultural objects that have been stolen from us. Our images and stories have also been stolen and continue to be stolen. There seems to me to be no difference between fighting for our homelands and fighting for our sovereignty with our images. But for that to happen we need to be living peoples and a living pan-Indian community. And that means lively dialogues like the one you’ve started, so I thank you for your words. I hope that mine are taken in the spirit of dialogue in which they’re written.

Yôotva,

Waylon Lenk

"Coyote Hunts the Sun" Rehearsal Log, November 2

Last night was a lower key rehearsal, due to my recent cold, in spite of it being our very first walk through. It was good to do the whole thing straight through and to see how it flows, which is nicely.

To start off, we plugged Ranae into the Makataimeshkiakiak sequence. It definitely makes a lot of difference having her teach the lecture notes as opposed to Darci reading them. It heightened the tension in that scene, making it, in my estimation, the most explosive in the play.

Then we walked through it off-book. The first time through we had a lot of stops and starts, mostly due to me not knowing all the lines that I wrote for Pihnêefich yet. But it worked, and ran about half an hour. The second time through was smoother and ran about 27 minutes. It’s great having Darci on the team as the objective eyes in the house. She helped us strengthen the visuals in the Makataimeshkiakiak scene by having Ranae, Chriss and I move into two lit playing spaces separated by a wall of dark, and re-blocking the Introduction by putting the Pihnêefich-Grant physical relationship on a diagonal across the audience.

Know that we all know our lines, we’re ready to run it a few more times on Friday, and then start putting in costumes and tech. We’re going to have a great show next week!