Review by Ron Fassler . . .
Headlining a review containing the word grief might not be the best way to get someone to go to Bubba Weiler’s excellent new play Well, I’ll Let You Go. But go you must and see this pitch-perfect production at The Space at Irondale in Brooklyn, in which director Jack Serio has gathered eight of the best stage actors in New York who all deliver the goods with an aching simplicity that make for an outstanding evening of theatre.
An actor and a playwright, the thirty-one-year-old Weiler digs deep into the subject of how one adjusts to losing a loved one when there is mystery surrounding their death. The story concerns a married couple, Marv and Maggie, who have lived in the same down-on-its-luck farmhouse in the same small town for thirty years. In their close-knit community, the pair made do with her meager salary as a schoolteacher and his as a lawyer. Marv, never a great money manager, would sometimes take his payments in such things as mulch (a wheelbarrow full of it is sent by a client during the play). Without spoiling the plot, what is revealed with a cast of eight characters (no doubling), in a series of one and two-person scenes, are the whys and wherefores of how Marv died. Besides that, a key question is how should Maggie mourn someone who meant everything to her if Marv might not have been the person she thought he was? Absorbing conversations include ones with a cousin (the sad and quirky Will Dagger), Maggie’s brother-in-law (portrayed with a brilliant, über realism by Danny McCarthy), his wife (a sly and not-to-be-trusted Amelia Workman), and a well-meaning if poorly mannered funeral director (the always reliable Constance Schulman), allow for well-written dialogues that provide enormous texture and contrast. When added to the mixture a mother (Emily Davis, gut-wrenchingly distraught) and her daughter (Cricket Brown, lovely) who play important roles in the story, result in a richly baked delicacy that rises like an impeccable soufflé.
The play opens with an unidentified character who speaks in an exposition-style delivery reminiscent of the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. As played by the soulful Michael Chernus, his standing to the side and offering subtext and background spoken out loud may at first seem like an odd choice. As a device though, it allows the play to take on a novelistic approach, in which dialogue scenes are interrupted by a narrator (reliable, in this case) that may take some getting used to but that end up immensely satisfying. In Chernus’s capable hands, the effect is memorable. And Quincy Tyler Bernstine, one of the best actresses around, conveys every conceivable emotion in a brutally honest performance as Maggie. If you’re not familiar with her work, she is reason enough alone to make it your business to get to Brooklyn before its limited engagement—just extended—that ends September 12th.
Played on a long narrow stage with the audience in two rows on either side, the Space at Irondale is an ideal setting. There is no traditional set to speak of, only props, mostly consisting of the kinds of metal folding chairs and a card table that you would more likely encounter in an acting studio than an off-Broadway theatre (again, Our Town). But scenic designer Frank J. Oliva has a few tricks up his sleeve, offset by Avery Reed’s t exemplary costumes and mood-shifting lighting designed by Stacey Derosier.
Jack Serio, who scored only a few months ago with the beautifully directed, site-specific Danger + Opportunity by Ken Urban, also contributed this season as Associate Director to Jordan Tannahill’s blindingly effective Prince Faggot, soon to reopen at the Seaview Theatre off-Broadway. He was also responsible for directing the well-received World Premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s Grangeville at Playwright’s Horizons. His busy 2025 continues with a production of Hunter’s Clarkston that will be coming to London’s West End this fall. To say he’s someone to watch is stating the obvious, but I’ll state it anyway.
Well, I’ll Let You Go (a title that irks me) is my only reservation about this smart and intriguing new play. I can’t help but be in a constant state of mourning for titles like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, as just one example (for that matter, any title by Tennessee Williams). For one thing, they’re easy to remember. In Bubba Weiler’s case, whatever prompted him to go with this one, he’s written a drama not easy to forget. After all, as Shakespeare once said (another guy good with titles . . . A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew . . .), “The play’s the thing.”
Photos by Emilio Madrid.
Headline photo: Michael Chernus.
