If you get a chance to see the play The Women of Lockerbie by Deborah Brevoort, by all means go.

I went to see The Women of Lockerbie because I remember when Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on the plane and eleven people on the ground.

And I went to see The Women of Lockerbie because the advertisement said the play was styled after a Greek tragedy with a Greek-like chorus. I loved my ancient Greek theater class in college.

As we entered the small experimental theater, a sign alerted us there would be no intermission, and if we left the theater during the 75-minute play, we would not be allowed to return. The play needs to be seen without interruption.

The stark stage washed in a pale-blue light held two props, four painted panels, and a fabric river dividing everything in two: the land, people, emotions, needs.

When the play starts, it’s seven years after the tragic bombing of Pan Am 103, and many loved ones of the victims have come to participate in the dedication of a memorial.

We meet a married couple who lost their only child in the bombing: a wife overwhelmed by grief and a husband who hides from it. We meet a callous American official who is to oversee the destruction of the personal property that once belonged to the people on Pan Am Flight 103. We meet the women of Lockerbie who witnessed the tragedy, suffered their own losses, and struggle to heal. The women of Lockerbie who want to wash, iron, and fold the clothes of the bombing victims and return them to their surviving families.

Grief in all its forms: raw, stuffed, converted, unacknowledged, motionless, haunted, and rage-filled, permeates the story. But so do love, compassion, and forgiveness.

At one point in the play, the set goes black. Not a whisper, not a sigh, not a breath is heard. In the darkness. The audience is moved to absolute silence. Tears spill from my eyes. I make no move to dig for a tissue in my purse. I cannot break the moment with sound.

No one from the audience left the theater during the play. And for 75 minutes in a small intimate theater, a group of outstanding college actors held us spellbound by the depth of their performance.

If you ever have a chance to see the play, by all means go.