photo by: Shawn Valverde

Natalie Crandall, left, as Jean and Ryan Hamlin, right, as Gordon perform at a dress rehearsal of "Dead Man's Cell Phone," directed by Piet Knetsch, at Theatre Lawrence on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

Though “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” first premiered in 2007, its themes about how modern technology can unite and isolate people are no less relevant today.

The fact that they may actually resonate even more in 2024 could be exactly what playwright Sarah Ruhl was predicting. As Theatre Lawrence prepares for the play to open this weekend nearly two decades later, director Piet Knetsch thinks Ruhl might have been peering into a crystal ball.

“I think the author sort of was looking into the future,” Knetsch told the Journal-World. “She saw the present, but she also saw the future.”

A synopsis on Theatre Lawrence’s website describes “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” as a dramatic comedy. By Knetsch’s description, it’s a “dark comedy” whose comic elements are stronger than its dark ones. But one of the challenges of explaining the show, he said, is that it’s hard to describe its plot in detail without revealing too much about its twists.

The story at least begins with an incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet cafe, and a stranger at the next table — Jean, played by Natalie Crandall — who’s been brought to her wit’s end. But her confrontation with the cell phone’s owner, Gordon, portrayed by Ryan Hamlin, ends in a realization that he’s dead, and Jean’s subsequent decision to answer it the next time it rings leads to her becoming increasingly entangled with the man’s loved ones — and with righting his wrongs.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

The cast of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” performs during a dress rehearsal at Theatre Lawrence on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

From there, the play comments on many things, Knetsch said, such as how pervasive cell phones are in everyday life and their propensity to intrude at the “oddest moments” and how, by choosing to answer a stranger’s cell phone and provide some comfort to its owner’s grieving family, one can demonstrate the positive ways cell phones allow us to connect.

It’s also a show that could be challenging to some viewers, Knetsch said, since it leans into humor about death, funerals and religion, often in a harsh way. Knetsch hopes those are things that will “make people think.”

For all those high-minded themes, there’s no shortage of absurdity. Take, for instance, the “cell phone ballet” in act two, which Knetsch said consists of snippets of cell phone conversations being heard over the sound system while people on stage dance with the cell phones pressed to their ears.

“It’s a fascinating way to comment on our lives and how cell phones and other means of electronic communication, how significant that has become to us — and sometimes to our great detriment,” Knetsch said.

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Natalie Crandall and Brandon Stevens as Jean and Dwight perform at a dress rehearsal of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at Theatre Lawrence on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

But perhaps the most fascinating element of the show is how purposefully ambiguous it is about its stage design directions. That’s typical of works by this playwright, according to set and lighting designer James Diemer, which is one of the reasons he’s wanted Theatre Lawrence to perform one of her works for quite some time.

Diemer told the Journal-World that unlike many other playwrights, who often “prescribe” how the show’s set should look and function, Ruhl’s works instead tell what each moment should “feel like.”

“The show’s largely made up of these moments, of feelings, and from a design standpoint, you kind of begin with absolute freedom,” Diemer said. “This show gets done a whole lot, but very rarely do the productions look the same or play out the same way, because she kind of just says ‘Make a world, and then tell this story in it.'”

photo by: Shawn Valverde

From left to right, Brandon Stevens as Dwight, Natalie Crandall as Jean, Dorian Logan as Hermia, and Kimberly O’Brien as Mrs. Harriet Gottlieb perform at a dress rehearsal of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at Theatre Lawrence on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

That meant Diemer wanted to create a space capable of being “everywhere and nowhere” all at once. There are 12 scenes in the play, with each set in a different location, from the opening coffeehouse to an airport in South Africa.

But the sets don’t attempt to be any of those places visually, Diemer said, and instead act as a “canvas” for projections, such as visuals of stained glass that tell the viewer the scene is taking place in a church. The pieces are clean-lined and neutrally colored, allowing them to be pushed together to represent a couch, pulled apart to represent cafe tables or even positioned side by side to evoke the image of a luggage return conveyor belt.

“It just makes room for these characters to tell their story and for us as audience to just kind of embrace the peculiarity of what we’re seeing,” Diemer said. “… We leave space for you to imprint your own world onto it, and at the same time, it follows a set of distinct rules.”

photo by: Shawn Valverde

Natalie Crandall and Brandon Stevens as Jean and Dwight perform during a dress rehearsal of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at Theatre Lawrence on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

Knetsch said the approach he and Diemer decided to take to make those changes as efficiently and interestingly as possible was to make them in full view of the audience. The play’s cast includes a three-person ensemble whose role is to change the set pieces, which are all outfitted with wheels, from one location to another — sometimes even overlapping with dialogue. It’s almost as if those set changes are choreographed, Knetsch said.

“That’s a conscious choice, on my part, to express the way in which I think this play can be produced, not that it can’t be done some other way,” Knetsch said. “I made the decision to focus heavily upon making things more comic, to find the comic elements as the greatest strength of the play.”

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” opens Friday at Theatre Lawrence, 4660 Bauer Farm Drive, and will have multiple performances through the end of January. For ticket information, call 785-843-SHOW (7469) or go online at theatrelawrence.com.