Bubba Weiler’s transcendent one-act drama Well, I’ll Let You Go, which debuted last summer at Brooklyn’s The Space at Irondale, was my pick as the best New York theater production of last year. The show now makes a triumphant reappearance at Manhattan’s Studio Seaview with all but one of its pitch-perfect original cast members reprising their roles. Anyone who cares about theater, or deeply human storytelling, should run to see this show — which is boosted by a riveting performance by Quincy Tyler Bernstine as a new widow whose fundamental kindness forces her to manage other people’s reaction to her grief as well as her own feelings of loss and confusion. That, and the lingering suspicion that her late husband may have been harboring a dark secret.
Over the last few decades, Berstine has emerged as one of the finest actors of her generation. While she is often cast in supporting roles, here she gets a meaty role that requires her to remain on stage for virtually the entire 90-minute running time — as her Maggie greets a parade of relatives, friends, and members of the community in her mid-size Midwestern town who come calling to pay their respects after the unexpected death of her husband, Marv. There’s nothing showy or performative in her movement; this is a grounded woman accustomed to being overlooked, and Bernstine inhabits the role as comfortably as the olive green hoodie she wears throughout, with her hands typically sunk into the pockets in a hunched-over protective slouch.
Maggie’s defensiveness becomes clear as she opens her door to a series of visitors who are all to eager to sweep pass the niceties of commiseration to get to some ulterior personal motive. There’s the misfit cousin (Will Dagger, just irksome enough) angling for Tupperware containers of food he can take home, and the pushy funeral home director (Constance Shulman, stopping just short of caricature), who arrives with a sample memorial poster and a bouquet of balloons (“It used to be flowers but… allergies”) in hopes of landing Maggie’s business.
Her childhood best friend, Julie (Amelia Workman, compellingly believable), tries to be supportive but hits nerves in ways that only longtime friends can — including the news that the town wants to rename Maggie’s street for Marv since he died a hero (for reasons that we only learn gradually). Then there’s Marv’s brother, Jeff (Danny McCarthy, a bundle of sharp-edged contradictions), a local cop currently on suspension due to what he calls “typical HR bullshit” but that we suspect have more merit than he’s prepared to admit. He’s also married to Julie, unhappily so, and there’s a weird dynamic among all four of them that’s been unfolding for decades.
There’s also a stranger named Angela (Emily Davis, who imbues her scene with a deep well of confessional honesty) who keeps leaving messages for Maggie wanting to unburden herself about something — and we gradually learn that the circumstances of Marv’s death have deeper implications for Maggie and her understanding of her decades-long marriage.
Weiler also provides us a narrator who relates the backstory of a town that once was propped up by a farm equipment factory and now boasts an Amazon warehouse as its biggest employer. Evoking the all-knowing Stage Manager from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, he also fills in some of the telling details about Maggie and the people in her life, the pet peeves, the long-festering resentments, the hidden motivations that have landed these characters precisely at this moment in time. Take Wally, who mooches free leftovers from Maggie and Marv after every family event. “Maggie would complain later that Wally took all the food,” the narrator tells us, “but what Marv knew and Wally knows that Marv knew is that Wally can’t cook – not for his life – and leftovers meant he could go the week without eating cereal for dinner.” And even without Marv there to prompt her, Maggie does indeed send Wally off with a casserole that’s been left for her as a mourner.
Sean Maher, a newcomer to the cast, effectively ingratiates himself as the narrator before quietly retreating to the sidelines, sometimes plopping himself into a chair beside an audience member seated in one of the three rows of risers on either sides of the stage. Under Jack Serio’s relaxed but controlled direction, the rest of the cast too offers genuine snapshots of flawed but relatable characters in all their humanity. Each struggles to offer Maggie anything close to true sympathy, blinkered as they are by their own fixations and shortcomings, but each is recognizable in their inchoate state of being.
Besides the narrator, Weiler’s play recalls Our Town in other significant ways: the small-town setting, the conversational dialogue, the simple staging with metal folding chairs and card tables representing a whole downstairs living space worth of furniture. (Set design by Frank J. Oliva, with lighting by Stacey Derosier that produces a magical moment of elegant simplicity.) The two shows also share a plainspoken attempt to grapple with life’s bigger, deeper questions. Do we every really know those closest to us? How do we honor the memory of those we’ve lost? And how do we find a path forward when death intrudes?
This is no mere Wilder homage. The story retains a truly contemporary feel, in language and the frankness of the issues it raises. Weiler also packs a punch — more than one, in fact — with some narrative and structural twists that continue to elicit actual gasps at the performances I attended.
In the end, it is Bernstine who holds the play together without dominating any one scene. Her face is a mirror of the constant shifts in Maggie’s emotions, her eyes squinting in anger one moment and then widening to the fullness of acceptance and deep-felt affection. There’s a subtlety to her performance, and an intelligence, that is stunning to behold — especially since she captures a full range of emotions without resorting to histrionics (and seldom raising her voice). Even when she’s just listening, which is often, you can’t take your eyes off of her. She offers a master class in conveying the minute shifts in feeling through a widow’s stages of grief, like a stop-motion view of sunlight casting shadows through a bay window. She also achieves an emotion so delicate and ephemeral that it’s all too rarely experienced in theater, let alone in life: grace. ★★★★★
WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO
Studio Seaview, Off Broadway
Running time: 90 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through June 20 for $49 to $137