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.”

We meet Maggie (a luminous Quincy Tyler Bernstine) and Wally (an endearingly nerdy Will Dagger), her husband’s needy cousin. The chattering, insecure Wally is complaining to Maggie about his mundane mail-carrier job, his paranoid fantasies that his boss and co-workers are out to frame him for an imagined crime, and annoying emails from travel companies urging him to take a vacation. Maggie lends a sympathetic ear as she feeds him leftover casserole. Simple enough stuff, written with attention to detail and played with verisimilitude. It’s slowly revealed Maggie has suffered a tragic loss. In succeeding scenes between Maggie and friends, strangers and family, we find out more (no spoilers). In each scene, the narrator relays the characters’ inner thoughts and backstory. This violates basic tenets of dramaturgy, having the subtext told to us rather than shown through indirect means. Nevertheless, the connection between the narrator figure and the central action becomes clear and his contributions are vital to the play.

Each new character begins a new element into the story as well as props to fill out the setting. A forcefully jolly funeral director (quirky Constance Schulman) arrives with balloons. Maggie’s best friend and sister-in-law Julie (empathic Amelia Workman) brings on dozens of flower arrangements. Brother-in-law Jeff (Danny McCarthy, hiding guilt and shame behind bravado) accompanies a wheelbarrow full of mulch. Finally two women (equally devastating Emily Davis and Cricket Brown), previously unknown to Maggie, complete the puzzle and bring this sad but ultimately uplighting story full circle.

Throughout, Weiler’s dialogue and characterizations ring true, full of telling details. Each of the characters is fully realized both in the writing and the playing. Weiler paints a believable and touching portrait of a community in mourning, searching for answers to inexplicable violence. Jack Serio’s staging is simple and direct—there are no flashy confrontations or dramatic fireworks. This allows the understated performances of a sensitive cast to shine through. Every moment and detail tells us about the people. Even the dust on a neglected piano brought in for the last scene feels important.

Bernstine delivers an outstanding performance as the bereaved Maggie. You can read the history of her marriage, her life before that and her unfulfilled yearnings on her expressive face as Chernus relates this information (the smarter members of the audience will have figured out who he is early in the play). Chernus has the difficult task of standing outside the narrative, yet plays an essential role in it. He gradually moves from narrator to central figure and captures our hearts by the final moments.

Without revealing too much, Serio’s staging of the final scene is strikingly beautiful as Maggie’s world becomes more real and she receives comfort from an unexpected source. It reminded me of the memorable final act of David Cromer 2009 revival of Our Town when the universal became specific and we were all brought into the dead Emily’s painful memory of her 12th birthday. A similar feat of theatrical legerdemain occurs in the climax of this achingly moving work. The title tells it all—a seemingly off-hand remark that carries an emotional wallop.

Aug. 7—29. The Space at Irondale, 85 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn, NY. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. letyougonyc.com