Originally presented at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2016, Kenneth Lonergan’s Hold On to Me Darling focuses on self-centered country-western superstar Strings McCrane, struggling to find happiness in the aftermath of his censorious mother’s death. Lonergan’s nearly three-hour comedy-drama never drags in Neil Pepe’s solid-steel production (Pepe also directed the previous Atlantic staging). Adam Driver manages to make Strings sympathetic even though the character is constantly making impulsive decisions and leaving emotional wreckage in his glamorous wake. Speaking in country-western cliches, Strings is all id, driven by his immediate needs, regardless of the consequences.
Lonergan skillfully satirizes America’s glittering but empty celebrity culture as well as our national tendency to avoid moral responsibility as exemplified by Strings’ reckless behavior. Driver is simultaneously charismatic and pathetic, believably creating a star who could headline stadium concerts and Hollywood sci-fi epics. He’s not bad at singing or playing the guitar either. It’s understandable why people would be drawn to him, in spite of Strings’s erratic nature.
Keith Nobbs’s needy assistant Jimmy, CJ Wilson’s down-to-earth brother Duke, and Adelaide Clemens’s innocent cousin Essie (all veterans of the 2016 production) and Heather Burns’ scheming girlfriend Nancy, all contribute layered and complex performances, each delivering their characters’ multiple motives.
Though he only appears for a few minutes at the end of the play, Frank Wood has a devastating impact and unlocks Strings’s neuroses. Walt Spangler’s detailed, versatile set create a believable world of hotel rooms, feed stores and small-town dens in this penetrating and funny play from one of our most insightful dramatists.
