By Isaac Hamlet

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When we die, we leave behind only the memories held by those we encounter. One imagines then — after we’re gone — that if a stranger were to talk to the people who knew us best, who would we be?This is exactly the situation a new play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, dives into.
“The basic plot is that there’s a café, and there’s a guy [named Gordon] sitting there whose phone is constantly ringing, and [the main character] Jean is also in the café,” said Brian Tanner, the production’s director. “It turns out the person is deceased, and she picks up the phone and starts to assimilate the person’s life. Sort of innocently at first, she starts to get deeper.”
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, audiences can attend Public Space One, 120 N. Dubuque St., to watch as Jean (Melissa Kaska) gradually immerses herself in the memory of a dead man.
“She wants to make Gordon into something honorable,” Kaska said. “She feels this responsibility since she was with him when he died, but I think she also wants to feel connected with something. She wants to be part of his life, be part of him, because she thinks it’ll make her feel more whole somehow.”
Jean decides to take Gordon’s cell phone and present herself to his family, creating, in the process, a persona that allows her to explain why she’s acquired the cell phone of the recently deceased.
Among the family members is Dwight, Gordon’s brother. Over the course of the play, he begins to fall in love with Jean, sparking — to a degree — a sibling rivalry that one would suspect had died with Gordon.
“I’m the representation of the physical connection to the physical world,” said Hunter Menken, who plays Dwight. “I don’t like cell phones or technology. I love paper.”
This trait highlights the contrast of Jean’s connection with Dwight and Gordon. While she has met and knows Dwight in life, her relationship with Gordon is a combination of imagination and memory through osmosis.
“Gordon is sort of like Jean’s imaginary friend,” Kaska said. “She doesn’t know him because he’s never been alive in her life, but she knows Dwight. But she feels connected to both of them.”
Kaska believes that her character’s fascination with the idea of Gordon leads her to dive into the lives of his family in a very real way, forming genuine connections with them.
“She starts to open up [around the family] for the first time, maybe, in her life,” Kaska said.
“Even if it is based on subterfuge,” Tanner said.

Event: *Dead Man’s Cell Phone*
Where: Public Space One, 120 N. Dubuque St.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, as well as December 10, 16 and 17
Cost: $10-13 (Pick Your Price on Saturday, Dec. 10)

[Correction: In a previous version of this article, it was reported that the performance would allow audience members who pay at the door to pick their price. In fact, this option is only available on Saturday, Dec. 10. It is $10-$13 for all other days. The *DI* regrets the error.]