G. Michael Blahnik

A Woman of Means: a Play in Two Acts G. Michael Blahnik

A Woman of Means is a tragi-comedy that grapples with the need for self-justification in the face of contradiction between one?s expressed values and one?s behavior. Hampton, a philanderer, had always wanted to marry a ?woman of means?, i.e. someone who was not only financially well off but motivated to stay that way. He not only wanted financial independence afforded him by a woman (which he never received), he also wanted his ?world? to be free from the ?unclean and unholy? (which it never was). Instead of marrying a woman of means, he married a nice but unstable woman, Elizabeth, who works as a nurse at a local hospital. Elizabeth, an intensely dependent woman given to bouts of severe depression, has tried to commit suicide several times throughout her marriage to Hampton. Hampton?s brother, Roger, a more conservative, monogamous man, lives ?in the shadow? of his brother and resents and envies Hampton?s more liberal, ?passionate? lifestyle. He is a grocery store manager who derives some satisfaction from his job, but ultimately he fears the accuracy of his brother?s critical statements about the unimportance of his work and his life. Hampton and Roger?s parents, Oscar and Lucille, are divorced. Oscar, like Hampton, is a philanderer, and Lucille, unlike Elizabeth, is able to unleash her anger upon the man who has betrayed her, but she ultimately has difficulty terminating her relationship with him. A Woman of Means is a manifestation of insidious human self-destructiveness of self-delusion presented in a series of interrelated scenes, some realistic and linear, some from the past, some non-realistic. Each scene adds to the patchwork of scenes that introduce, develop, exacerbate, and resolve the experiential process of human self-delusion, pointing to the possibility of self-redemption and self-realization. A Woman of Means is a modern-day tragedy. It is the manifestation of self-delusion in the changing world of male/female relationships and alternative family structures.