It was not, as was mentioned several times by the friendly, anxious people preparing dinner, an evening that anyone should spend alone. And though they often broke my heart as I listened to them trying so hard to sound hopeful, I am grateful to have spent Tuesday night with the members of the Gabriel family of Rhinebeck, N.Y.

They didn’t exactly improve my state of mind about the state of the nation. But they put me in touch with feelings that I had been trying to avoid all day. There are times when sitting down with like-minded friends for a good cry — even if the crying is on the inside — temporarily drains the poison from what has felt like an abscess of a day.

While millions of my fellow citizens gazed like frustrated fortunetellers into onscreen maps of the United States turning shades of red and blue, certain New York theatergoers chose to hunker down with the Gabriels for election night. This opportunity was graciously provided by the Public Theater, where “Women of a Certain Age — Play 3 of the Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family” opened on (and is set on) the very night that Americans went to the polls to select their next president.

The Gabriels are the tenderly wrought creations of the playwright Richard Nelson. Their time onstage here and in two previous dramas — along with Mr. Nelson’s earlier tetralogy, “The Apple Family Plays” (seen between 2010 and 2013), also set in Rhinebeck — may collectively represent the most profound achievement in topical theater in this country since the Depression-era triumphs of Clifford Odets’s “Waiting for Lefty” and Marc Blitzstein’s “The Cradle Will Rock.”