The Dead Guy

by Eric Coble

The Pitch: You get one million dollars to spend over the next seven days. A camera crew follows your every move and broadcasts your adventures on national television. The Hook: At the end of the week.you die. The Best Part: The viewing audience gets to vote on the method of your death! For hard-luck Eldon Phelps, the deal is irresistible. But does America have the stomach for this much reality? What would you do if you had one week until you became."The Dead Guy"? Stay tuned.

60 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2006

About the author

Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and bred on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. His plays have been produced off-Broadway, throughout the United States and on several continents including productions at Manhattan Class Company, the Kennedy Center, Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival, Alliance Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Laguna Playhouse, Stages Repertory, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, New York Fringe Festival, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Dallas Children's Theater and the Contemporary American Theater Festival. Awards include the AT&T Onstage Award, National Theatre Conference Playwriting Award, an NEA Playwright in Residence grant, a TCG Extended Collaboration grant, the Aristophanes Award for Best New Comedy, the Cleveland Arts Prize and two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence grants.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up for some interesting scenes and funny dialogue. I was expecting this play to establish, from the very beginning, a sort of futuristic dystopia where people can contract to die at the end of a reality show (in the tradition of "The Running Man") but the world is presented as entirely contemporary and realistic, which presents a fatal flaw in the entire premise. The "contract" is clearly not valid, and neither are the threats given by the producer to enforce it. So not only are the stakes not that high, there are no stakes at all. The same goes for the surprise "twist" at the end. It's not really plausible because the world of the play is not an alternative world where murder might not actually be murder. It seems like a lot of intellectual dishonesty is required in order to make the narrative work, and I can't engage in that much suspension of disbelief when the rest is presented so literally. This needed to be a science fiction world to pack any real punch. Ultimately, it simply doesn't work for me.

[Jake Van Hoorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise, I think I would like this better seeing it live than just reading it.

[Marcellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not often that I read contemporary plays. Or find comedic ones for that matter. This play was hilarious and I'm glad that I can add it too my bookshelf. I think that not only was there something to say about the state of America's obsession with "reality" television, but also the quality of life and the (un)importance value that our society puts on it.

[Roberta]

My teen actors loved this one. It’s not to my taste but I get why they would like it. A spoof of reality shows. One of them said, “my mom would hate this,” which maybe is a rave from a teen 😂