Maura in a dream

I dreamed a strange dream last night, not the kind of thing I usually remember or care to share. But as it had characters and a sort of plot, I might as well.

Maura Tierney appears as a reclusive heiress, forbidden to marry by the terms of somebody's Will, person not named or specified. Possibly dead husband, possibly controlling parent. Puts me in mind of my mother telling me that Jackie Onasis was disinherited by the Kennedys when she married the shipping magnate. As if she cared.

So Maura is kind of cloistered from the world, locked away in a Dakota-style New York apartment, and rarely seen even by her staff. Has very occasional meetings with a lawyer who is charged, among other things, with making sure she doesn't contravene the terms of the Will.

But for all this, she has a secret life, an alter-ego, as a stage actress. So to summarise: she's filthy rich and mostly reclusive, but to get away from all that, she puts on a wig and makeup and appears on the off-Broadway stage in musical reviews and plays.

The plot turns on the lawyer, who sees her in an off-Broadway production and falls hopelessly in love with her. So on the one hand, he keeps making appointments with the recluse, who speaks to him in monosyllables and sits in a darkened room; and on the other, he's writing letters to a slightly obscure young actress.

Maura starts to respond to both the letters and the lawyer -- except she knows that he is absolutely the last person she could start an affair with, because he's the one person she wouldn't want to find out about it.

It's a love/money thing. And a strange way to have a dream about it.