Well, I'll Let You Go
WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO by Bubba Weiler, directed by Jack Serio: I’ve seen Bubba Weiler on stage (in Rebecca Gilman’s SWING STATE) and on screen in the horror film THE RANGER (2018). He did good work in both, so I was pumped to see what he would do as a playwright. I was impressed. His play is a serio-comic look at a widow (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) adjusting to her husband’s recent death. The small town in which they live sees him as a hero, but there were questions about the incident. It’s all revealed gradually through a series of scenes in which various characters visit her to share their condolences and/or convince her to allow for a funeral.
Weiler’s script captures a Midwestern ethos. As the narrator (Matt Maher) explains, they live in a town surrounding a farmhouse whose unsuccessful owners had sold off parcels of land to create a series of suburban developments that have expanded to include churches, schools and an Amazon fulfillment center. The characters who visit Maggie are eccentrics in various ways, but then so was her husband, Marv, a lawyer known for his pro bono work (one grateful client delivers a pile of compost every spring). They’re suffering from Marv’s death, but they’re also consumed by their own quirks. Wally can’t hold a job, while Joanie just wants to sell funeral arrangements and arrives with a gift of balloons. There are also jokes about Maggie’s being inundated with flowers and casseroles by well-meaning neighbors. It’s a very human look at the way we deal with death. But each visitor also drops a tidbit about what happened to Marv and why.
Bernstine is a wonder. The character has a dry sense of humor, and while everybody is acting all around her, she has to stifle her reactions, because she isn’t at the point she can let them out in front of others. When she does, it’s tremendously moving. Among the supporting cast, Danny McCarthy is a standout in a very real performance as Marv’s brother, and Constance Shulman is quite funny as the well-meaning funeral director so intent on pushing her services she can’t see Maggie’s pain. Will Dagger is less effective as Wally, Marv’s immature cousin. He has a forced vocal quality that makes some of his lines hard to follow, and at times he seems to be playing tics rather than finding the character behind them. It’s also easy to tell who the narrator is. But that aside, Weiler’s play, performed without intermission, is one of the shortest 100 minutes I’ve spent in the theater.
