Cell

The curtain is down. An announcer steps forth from behind this curtain, to occupy centre stage.

ANNOUNCER
Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin. At this point I must ask you to please turn off your cell phones.

After a proper pause, the curtain rises. A woman is onstage. The lights are low and she is shadowed.

WOMAN
It was my birthday, and I wanted to do something for myself. I left Tom with the babysitter and then Dennis and I went to the theatre.

The woman takes a cell phone out of her pocket.

WOMAN
The announcer before the show asked everyone in the audience to
turn off their cell phones. Of course, I turned mine off too. How was
I to know?

She looks down at the phone. It doesn’t ring, but she holds it up to her ear anyway. Then lowers it again.

WOMAN
She said she called me over and over again. She didn’t know
what play we were going to or what theatre — she only knew
the number of my cell. When Tom stopped breathing she
panicked. She called me three times before she thought to call
the hospital. The messages just piled up in my pocket, filling the
phone. Then the ambulance came — and took his body away.
We were having a wonderful time. Dennis was wonderful, so sweet.
I remember thinking, This is the best night since we had the baby.

The woman raises and lowers the phone once more. While she has been speaking, other actors have been dialing the phone numbers of everyone in the audience, acquired somehow before the play began.

These actors leave frantic desperate messages, begging for someone to answer, improvising disasters. The woman stares into the dead phone. When every answering machine is full, the curtain falls.