Ruth Gordon played the part of a Boston widow with a rather common background, who together with her husband built an enviable fortune the hard way. Being a very spirited widow, she now decides to have a fine old time with her money, giving away "diamonds, paintings, and taxi-cabs with fierce abandon, and buying an oversize yacht as if it were a boat for the bathtub." (N.Y. Daily News). But she has two lacquered daughters, her own Regan and Goneril, who are covetous of the family fortune and resent the manner in which she is enjoying it. They have her committed to a sanitarium, but miss a bet when they think that will hold the old gal. She reaches into her own passel of friends and has herself declared "unincompetent," and returns home still in control of her wealth.
A Very Rich Woman premiered on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre in September 1965 under the direction of Garson Kanin.