It explores the paradox of modern technology's ability to both unite and isolate people in the digital age.
[2] The play premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2007, running to July 1, 2007, and was directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman.
Also featured were Woolly Mammoth ensemble members including Sarah Marshall, Naomi Jacobson, Rick Foucheux, Bruce Nelson, and Jennifer Mendenhall.
[4] It starred Mary Louise Parker (as "Jean") and Kathleen Chalfant (as "Mrs. Gottlieb") and was directed by Anne Bogart.
[1][5] Bill Camp was set to star as Gordon, before having to withdraw due to other work commitments, before being replaced by T. Ryder Smith.
[8] Act 1 Jean is sitting quietly at a cafe when she becomes increasingly frustrated at the endlessly ringing cellphone on the table next to her.
In an effort to appease the woman, Jean lies and says Gordon's last words were declarations of love for his mistress.
When Mrs. Gottlieb begins to get emotional, Jean tries to placate her with another lie about how Gordon called her the day he died because he wanted to talk to her.
While he braids, Jean talks about how she never owned a cellphone before and marvels at its ability to both bring people together and push them apart.
He expresses his disgust with the current state of the world and confesses he sells organs on the black market for a living.
The day he died, he decided he wanted to go to the cafe for a lobster bisque only to find out Jean had ordered the last one, so he gets lentil instead.
As he sits watching Jean eat her soup, he begins to suffer a heart attack and tries to think of whom to call.
When the phone rings again she answers to hear Hermia who is calling because she's drunk at a bar and needs a ride home.
Hermia says yes but then begins to divulge extremely intimate details about her and Gordon's sex life to a visibly uncomfortable Jean.
Overwhelmed with pity, Jean tells Hermia that Gordon wrote drafts of a letter to her on the day he died.
A woman on the other end tells her there's a kidney for sale in South Africa and that she'll meet her in the airport of Johannesburg before hanging up.
Robert Hurwitt, in reviewing a production in 2009 in San Francisco, wrote: "After one of her better plays, you exit the theater to enter a Ruhl world of ordinary people living extraordinary lives and small coincidences opening into quirky metaphysical conundrums.... Ruhl's gifts of probing humor, vivid imagination and poignant humanity are as alive here as in the luminous 'Eurydice' that Berkeley Rep took to off-Broadway and 'In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)'.