STALEMATE

This play presents, through dramatic, presentational, and inter-active means, a study of conflicts, sexual ethics, and the practical considerations of three people caught within a tightly constructed romantic triangle. The central character, Alena, is an attractive and highly intelligent young woman faced with the challenge of defining her own identity from within the circumstances in which she has become involved. At the same time, Alena is loved and supported by an older man who has provided her with kindness and a comfortable home that she respects and values and is passionately loved by a man her own age offering a kind of future which she finds both attractive and intimating.

The action of the play presents Alena entwined within deeply felt relationships with each of these men. She is seen both as lover and as loving homemaker. She is also seen within the deeply troubled context of her own strictly personal attempts to define, balance, and reconcile herself to each of these roles without being forced to abandon her own identity along the way. During both her daily routine and her late night meetings with her lover, Alena struggles to reconcile her strongly conflicted emotions. She attempts to deal with these circumstances through integrity and with insight. Finally, she accepts responsibility for the consequences of both her actions and her restraint regarding taking an action that might hurt to either of the men with whom she has become so fully involved. Life for Alena has become a game of chess in which she is both a piece on the board and an active player. She is always at the moment of decision, and she is frozen by refusal to take on a definitive action.

Alena’s situation is an intricately balanced existential stalemate. She is isolated within herself. She is alienated and alone and bound in a perpetuating state of suspension, always confronted with choice and always drawing back from decisive action.