Off-B'way Review: Well, I'll Let You Go

Michael Chernus in Well, I'll Let You Go.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Bubba Weiler’s new play Well, I’ll Let You Go at the Space at Irondale in Brooklyn breaks a few rules and doesn’t seem to have much going for it at first. But the tension and emotion build gradually to a heartbreaking finish and the play dispenses many insightful observations about grief, family, and community along the way.

This is the playwright’s Off-Broadway debut and I’m only familiar with him as an actor. He gave a piercing performance in Swing State at the Minetta Lane in 2023 and was nominated for Drama Desk, Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards. With this loving drama of everyday life, Weiler proves to be as thoughtful an author as he is a performer. 

The play opens without much theatricality. Scenic designer Frank J. Oliva’s environment is a mostly bare playing area with audience members on both sides. Avery Reed’s casual costumes are similarly understated, but they tell us much about the characters wearing them. There are a few pieces of simple furniture—a card table with two folding chairs, a group of six additional folding chairs arranged together, a mini-fridge, a table with a coffee maker and a microwave. The play begins with an actor entering without the house lights dimming. (They are not fully lowered until the final scene and the audience is so close they seem to be a part of the action. Stacey Derosier sparingly lights the play but her design achieves maximum impact.) Much like the Stage Manager in Our Town, the affable Michael Chernus explains the social and economy history of the setting and introduces the characters as they appear. This is a “get-by” kind of town of modest houses and strip malls where manufacturing jobs have disappeared to replaced by an Amazon fulfillment center. The house we’re in “attracts people who have had a rough go.”