Plays
John Blegen, a recent immigrant from Norway, finds himself struggling to make sense of the his life working on an isolated farm in northwest Minnesota in 1896. To fight the crushing boredom of his existence, he has an affair with the farm owner's wife, begins a twisted involvement with his adolescent daughter, and is propelled into a terrible final confrontation in a dark barn that night.
In 2007, David, a minor writer, returns to his hometown on a family errand. He meets his ex-wife for a drink, and their waitress is a woman he had met, only once, forty-two years earlier when they were in high school. The encounter in an airport bar leads to a memory of an event in 1965 that turns all of their lives inside out before the night is done.
M. and W. (both about 60) open the play discussing whether or not it's a good idea for M. to write about his youthful erotic memories; in spite of W.'s warnings, M. goes ahead. M. and W. explore and witness moments from his peripatetic military family past, from age 8 through his late 20's, with surprising and disturbing results.