The Strangest Thing

by Wendy Dann

The snow falls constantly on a sidewalk with three houses. A boy rides his bicycle and the houses move past him: first one way, then the other. Clara, escaping a run of bad relationships, returns home for Thanksgiving but her mother, Charlotte, isn’t cooking dinner. She’s waiting for husband Harry to come home. When he arrives, he confesses, “The strangest thing happened. I forgot how to get home.” But...

The snow falls constantly on a sidewalk with three houses. A boy rides his bicycle and the houses move past him: first one way, then the other. Clara, escaping a run of bad relationships, returns home for Thanksgiving but her mother, Charlotte, isn’t cooking dinner. She’s waiting for husband Harry to come home. When he arrives, he confesses, “The strangest thing happened. I forgot how to get home.” But Harry is forgetting more than the way home. As he drifts away, Clara turns to Charlotte for help, demanding “Forgetting what?” “Us,” replies Charlotte. “He’s forgetting us.” Harry forgets more and more, and is eventually remembered by the family down the street. “He’s a POW,” the boy says to Clara as she marches down the sidewalk to retrieve her father. “Do you know what that is?” Clara glares at the boy, “He’s not a POW. He’s never been in a war.” Furious with her father’s forgetting, Clara kidnaps the boy in hopes of bringing her father back. Waiting for Harry in a world that’s filling up with snow, Charlotte, Clara and the boy build snow forts, cook a turkey, and finally, face how families forget and re-form.

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The Strangest Thing

Recommended by

  • Cheryl Bear: The Strangest Thing

    An incredibly surreal world where family is latched on to where it is found so they can rise anew. Wonderful!

    An incredibly surreal world where family is latched on to where it is found so they can rise anew. Wonderful!

  • Eugene O'Neill Theater Center: The Strangest Thing

    It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Wendy Dann and her play The Strangest Thing as a finalist for our 2012 National Playwrights Conference. The play rose through a competitive, anonymous, multileveled selection process that took nearly nine months to execute. As one finalist out of hundreds of submissions, the strength of this play’s writing has allowed this work to prosper in such a competitive selection process.

    It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Wendy Dann and her play The Strangest Thing as a finalist for our 2012 National Playwrights Conference. The play rose through a competitive, anonymous, multileveled selection process that took nearly nine months to execute. As one finalist out of hundreds of submissions, the strength of this play’s writing has allowed this work to prosper in such a competitive selection process.

Development History

  • Type Reading, Organization Hangar Theatre, Year 2014

Awards

  • National Playwrights Conference
    O'Neill Theatre Center
    Finalist
    2012