When Is a Clock

By: Matthew Freeman

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Synopsis: Dramatic Comedy / 5m, 3f / Approximate running time: 1 hour and 45 minutes, no intermission. / Various settings, some real, some imaginary, in Pennsylvania / When Gordon's wife vanishes, the only clue to her whereabouts is a bookmark in dog-eared copy of Traveling to Montpelier. With little help to be found at work, from his son, or from the police, Gordon takes off to a rural bookstore to find some answers. His journey brings him to the town of Cornersville, in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Through a fractured narrative that is half-mystery and half-memory, we learn about Gordon’s marriage, his relationship with his son, his work-life and his wife’s bizarre entanglements with a mysterious stranger. We learn, too, about the nature of the landscape unique to the play: a magical universe with physics and laws that can both free the characters from their own stifling identities, and trap them as well. Synchronicity, dreams, and alchemy combine in this exploration of what it means to be able to – and unable to – change. At turns both scathingly funny and disturbingly compelling, When Is A Clock features Freeman's celebrated deconstruction of American culture - which has been called "nonviolent, though as savage as any slasher film" by the New York Times.