Theatre in Review: Well, I'll Let You Go (The Space at Irondale)We may now classify Bubba Weiler as a double threat. The actor, who often works in Chicago theatres, earned plenty of attention and a Drama Desk Award nomination as a troubled, substance-abusing Midwesterner in the Off-Broadway transfer of the Goodman Theatre production Swing State. Now he returns as a playwright with this account of a violent incident rippling through a community, upending lives in ways both subtle and stark. Well, I'll Let You Go has structural problems to be sure, and, in some ways, Jack Serio's production is less than ideal. But Weiler has a playwright's ear and a real appreciation for the many ways his characters contend with the effects of tragedy. For the second time, his talent gets our attention. Well, I'll Let You Go is mostly a series of one-on-one encounters between the newly widowed Maggie and an array of seemingly sympathetic interlopers. Only gradually do we learn that her husband, Marv, has been killed in a shooting outside a Planned Parenthood clinic; lives were saved, most notably Ashley, a young woman seeking an abortion. It's the sort of thing one reads about every day, alas, without thinking much about what comes after. In this case, Weiler constructs an intriguing mystery: Tributes to Marv abound, along with whispers: Why was he escorting Ashley to the clinic? What was their relationship? Mourning a husband poised in a no-man's-land between sainthood and scandal, Maggie has a lot to think about. Weiler maps out his dramatic territory with rare accuracy, describing a town where a once-burgeoning industry has moved out, leaving a gap filled only by an Amazon fulfillment center that keeps the locals employed if not prosperous. (It's the kind of town where men hang out at the local "social club," where they pay a minimal fee to drink.) He also drops many hints about the combination of devotion and disappointment that constituted Maggie and Marv's marriage. Each scene gives us a fuller picture of what happened, leaving us avid to know more. The best part of Well, I'll Let You Go, at least in this iteration, is the A-team of actors who enter the fray with Maggie, complaining, haggling, evading, and, eventually, laying the truth. They include Will Dagger as an aimless family friend with a history of bad personal decisions; Constance Shulman, toting a gaggle of balloons and her patented deflating vocal delivery as a funeral director bent plying her reluctant customers with too many options; Amelia Workman as Maggie's unhappily married sister-in-law (and sometime best friend), announcing planned tributes to Marv (a street named after him), while planting seeds of doubts about him; and Danny McCarthy, as Marv's brother, who is oddly evasive about (and strangely untouched by) the loss of a sibling. Providing a solidly wrenching climax are Emily Davis, as Ashley's fragile, feckless mother, heartbreakingly trying to shield her daughter from a lifetime of mistakes, and Cricket Brown, as Ashley, who quietly rocks Maggie's world with truths she never suspected. Presiding over it all is Quincy Tyler Bernstine, alternately wry, moody, preoccupied, defensive, and outright furious as Maggie, who, even as her life is upended by widowhood, grapples to unravel the mystery of her late spouse's character. "He's a figure -- now -- your husband - a hero," Shulman's character tells her. "He's not just, you know, a man -- he's not just yours anymore; he's yours, of course, but he's ours. He's important to this community, which is in mourning." As Well, I'll Let You Go makes clear, this news is the coldest form of comfort. For all the striking work onstage, however, Well, I'll Let You Go has certain built-in problems that are tough to overlook. The most prominent is an unnamed narrator, played by Michael Chernus, whose role in the drama becomes obvious after only a scene or two. Weiler has given him some lovely scene-setting passages -- and Chernus, as always, is a pro -- but he becomes an intrusive presence, laying out in detail the thoughts passing through Maggie's mind as well as the implications of each new twist. He is, essentially, spoon-feeding exposition to the audience, an unnecessary task as the play of emotions across Bernstine's face tells all about the turbulent emotions she is fighting to master. (The presence of the narrator, as well as the heartland setting and deliberately spare production design, may leave you wondering if the American theatre's debt to Thornton Wilder will ever be paid in full.) Indeed, the script is so laden with passages of prose that it often feels like a novel in disguise. Also, for all of Serio's fine work with the actors, the vast, high-ceilinged venue is problematic; the play would surely benefit from a more intimate space. Still, scenic designer Frank J. Oliva delivers the restrained look the script calls for, framing the stage in diaphanous curtains and collaborating with Stacey Derosier's lighting design to produce a luminous effect that brings the action to an effective close. Avery Reed's costumes, mostly consisting of everyday leisure wear, are nevertheless well-suited to each character. Sound designer Brandon Bulls delivers a single plangent chord to signal the end of each scene plus solid reinforcement for Avi Amon's melancholy original underscoring. In any event, this is no dilettante work from an actor moonlighting as a writer. A tendency to overexplain is often the hallmark of an inexperienced playwright, and if you can look past this, you'll find much that is touching and gifted with the ring of truth. Flaws and all, Well, I'll Let You Go is filled with sharp character observations, telling dialogue, and a leading character whose dilemma demands one's attention. Now we have two reasons to look for Bubba Weiler's name. --David Barbour 
|
