Review: Well, I’ll Let You Go, an Elegiac Off-Broadway Tearjerker

One of the most unpleasant things about the death of a close family member is that it instantly thrusts you into the role of host, entertaining a parade of mourners for whom you must recount the circumstances of your loved one’s demise, dredging up real emotion like a non-Equity actor forced to give multiple performances a day until the closing notice leaves you to brood among the wilting flowers.

That’s where Maggie (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) finds herself by the second scene of Bubba Weiler’s Well, I’ll Let You Go, now making its world premiere at the Space at Irondale. Featuring a murderers’ row of New York stage actors under Jack Serio’s extraordinarily nuanced direction, it’s this summer’s must-have ticket for fans of new American drama.

Maggie’s husband, Marv, died in a traumatic incident at the local community college that has left people in their small Midwestern town hailing him as a hero. Weiler gives the audience the gut-punch sensation of receiving news of an unexpected death through the singular voice of Constance Shulman, who plays a harried funeral director on a house call.

“Your husband’s dead / Is that right?,” she asks, juggling an easel and a bundle of purple balloons. She later produces a carpet square to help Maggie coordinate her shoes for the big day. “Yours will be only the 7th funeral on this carpet,” she boasts, and we cannot help but laugh at Shulman’s blasé delivery of this aggressive salesmanship.

But Maggie still has questions about what exactly happened and why her husband was involved—a subject that her best friend, Julie (Ameilia Workman), gingerly broaches. “I mean – a grown man – / at a community college – / where he doesn’t teach, he’s not enrolled – no children,” she all but connects the dots. Marv’s brother (and Julie’s husband) Jeff (Danny McCarthy, perfectly cast) further unveils the picture of a decades-long marriage that had lost its spark, yet a visit from Marv’s cousin Wally (Will Dagger, perfectly embodying the furious compensation of the know-it-all fuckup) underlines just how indispensable the union of Marv and Maggie had become to this community.

He was a family lawyer happy to take payment in mulch from landscapers, and auto tune-ups from mechanics. She’s a retired teacher. From the vantage point of Fort Greene, they’re humble, middle-class people; but to Angela (Emily Davis), a woman who has been desperately trying to reach Maggie, they’re elites. “I always wanted to come in here…it’s so big and pretty,” Angela comments on their two-bedroom home when she is finally granted an audience. Without sacrificing clarity, Davis swallows her words, betraying the anxiety of a woman who has been conditioned to make herself small. We see the legacy of that behavior in the softly skittish speech of her daughter, Ashley (Cricket Brown), a waitress at the social club Marv frequented while Maggie was at home, dining alone.

As she so often does, Bernstine delivers an unforgettable performance of a woman stewing in both anger and grief.  Only the latter emotion is socially acceptable, which means that much of the former must be smothered in niceties—but it’s there. Bernstine makes us feel it in every weary expression and penetrating gaze. That few times she genuinely smiles are transcendent.

Michael Chernus is the narrator of this 21^st post-industrial rejoinder to Our Town. He serves heaping helpings of exposition and omniscience in a manner that feels conversational, conveying the charm of a goofy, lovable uncle. Of course, just because someone is delightful at a party doesn’t mean that feeling holds behind closed doors.

Weiler is keenly aware that a particularly potent strain of drama grows in the valley between public myth and private truth, and for 100 intimate minutes, we see that divergence with clear eyes. We see the emotional complexity of a long-term marriage, with all the dread and hope and love and fear such a protracted commitment inspires.

Part of that clarity derives from Serio’s deceptively simple production, which initially resembles a rehearsal with folding chairs and tables, the house lights fully up so we can see the faces of our fellow audience members from across the traverse stage (Frank J Oliva designed the scenery, which never feels ornamental). Avery Reed’s contemporary costumes tell us so much about each character (Wally’s Amazon jeans and knock-off Crocs are a master stroke). Avi Amon’s gorgeous original music enhances the emotion while aiding in the scenic flow. And Stacey Derosier’s subtly insistent lighting imperceptibly asserts itself, culminating in an arresting final cue.

That moment, when the light hits a glass table in the family room in just the right way to make the whole room sparkle, although it’s at such an odd hour that no one ever sees it, is referenced early in the play. A heavy-handed metaphor, it nevertheless makes an essential point in a time when we are so regularly blinded by obligations are attention-sapping distractions: There is beauty in the world, but we rarely look up to notice it.