On Q Productions

CELL PHONE BLUES, a new play by Robert Johnson, Jr., is a five-character play set in Charlotte’s black working class neighborhood during the period of community canvassing for Barack Obama’s presidential bid in North Carolina, May 2008.

Cell Phone Blues is a dramatization of tragic events in the life of an African-American family that is confronted with unforeseen and debilitating events. Rachel Jackson, a young college student has been arrested for a drug offense that she knew nothing about. Her father Charles Jackson has uncovered some unexplained cell phone calls on his wife’s cell phone bill and these two events orchestrate to almost tear this close knit family apart at its roots. This conflict is complicated by David Wallace a predatory ex-con who seduces young Rachel into a life of confusion that adds fuel to the family’s tragic collapse.

The play tackles the issue of how stable families can be undermined by jealousy and deception, and how the forces of gentrification, drugs and poverty can cause human vulnerability and fragility to escalate out of control.  

     Many people have written about the pursuit of the American Dream. CELL PHONE BLUES looks at a particular family during a period of political optimism and demonstrates that such optimism seldom catches fire among those on the margins of society and that structural changes of an economic nature must filter down to the poor. It also sheds a light on the barriers and possibilities between parents and optimistic youth during the Barack Obama primary campaign in Charlotte. Finally, the play explores the tension between dreams of economic success and the ever present burden and companionship of the blues.