Twenty-five years they lived in this old farmhouse together, Maggie and Marv — one of those good, solid couples the people in their Midwestern suburb have long since come to depend on: for help when times are difficult, and for the everyday hope that decent people inspire just by being there.
But Marv died the other day — heroically, the neighbors say. Now Maggie is abruptly on her own in middle age, peering out from the fog of grief, trying to make sense of the life she built for herself and the husband she thought she knew.
Played with deftness and delicacy by the extraordinary Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Maggie is the center who may or may not hold in “Well, I’ll Let You Go,” the quietly absorbing new drama by Bubba Weiler at the Space at Irondale in Brooklyn.
Marv’s death — his murder, actually, in murky circumstances — has body-slammed Maggie. Weariness is etched in her face; it weighs down her walk. Yet she has to keep moving, accepting the too-many flowers and too-many casseroles that materialize at her door, and deciding what to do about a funeral, which she isn’t even sure she wants.
Looking on at all this is a narrator played by Michael Chernus (recently of the Apple TV+ series “Severance”), like a heartland variation on the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” to which Weiler’s play nods. (The stripped-down set, part of that homage, is by Frank J. Oliva.)
As friends, family and strangers appear at Maggie’s house, the narrator tells us the secrets of each one: Wally (Will Dagger), Marv’s odd, alarming mess of a cousin, who has leaned hard on Marv and Maggie and knows he is a burden; Joanie (Constance Shulman), whose myopic eccentricity makes her horrendous at her funeral home job, but who chose that career for a devastating reason; Julie (Amelia Workman), Maggie’s friend since childhood, who visits only belatedly because “Maggie has held her up through a lifetime of rough patches, and she’s afraid what it might cost to pay her back.”
Also stopping by: Jeff (Danny McCarthy), Marv’s brother and Julie’s husband, who is not above manipulating Maggie at her most vulnerable; Angela (Emily Davis), who figures in Maggie’s past in a heartbreaking way that Maggie only vaguely remembers; and Ashley (Cricket Brown), the community college student whose life Marv saved from the gunman who killed him, and whose connection to Marv is, for Maggie, a torturous mystery.
This is an eye-poppingly talented cast, delivering meticulous, vivid performances. Then again, Weiler — an Illinois native notable for his stellar turn in Rebecca Gilman’s likewise subdued prairie play, “Swing State” — has done what performer-playwrights tend to do: written a showcase for actors. Other than the omnipresent Chernus, each shares a single scene with Bernstine.
The play is directed by Jack Serio, who made his reputation for assembling prestige casts when he staged “Uncle Vanya” in a loft two summers ago, with David Cromer in the title role. (Stacey Derosier, who lit that show, is similarly expert here.)
In its palpable Midwestern-ness, this production feels reminiscent of Cromer’s “Our Town.” (The spot-on costumes are by Avery Reed.) Niggling detail, though: The geographic illusion breaks — at least for people like me, who are from there — when characters pronounce “Wisconsin” with an East Coast crispness (Wis-CON-sin) instead of running it together, Midwest-style: Wi-SCON-sin.
“Well, I’ll Let You Go” is a deeply American play about loss, regret and what makes a meaningful life. It’s about how weird people are around death, and how confused they can be by complexity, especially when morality is involved.
It’s about the elusiveness of love, let alone happiness. And it’s about the clarity that comes when that fog of grief dissipates, even for a moment, and you can see what was real, and what you get to hang on to.
Well, I’ll Let You Go
Through Aug. 29 at the Space at Irondale, Brooklyn; letyougonyc.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.
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