“Hold on to Me Darling” Review – Adam Driver Drives Kenneth Lonergan’s Electric Game | US Theater

IIn 2016, playwright and filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan released the film Manchester by the Sea, a devastating and beautifully detailed portrait of a grieving man played by Casey Affleck; Both Affleck’s performance and Lonergan’s screenplay won Oscars. That same year, another Lonergan drama about grief received far less attention as his play Hold On to Me Darling opened on Broadway, starring Timothy Olyphant as a world-famous country singer suffering from the recent loss of his mother. Hold On to Me Darling, still Lonergan’s latest produced play, returns to New York for a limited engagement, with about half the original cast intact but now starring Adam Driver in the role originated by Olyphant.

On the surface, Olyphant seems a better fit for Strings McCrane, a singer who returns to his small Tennessee hometown for his mother’s funeral and seriously considers staying here and possibly giving up his life as a musician and popular movie star. I can’t think of a contemporary figure who has been equally successful in mega-budget sci-fi films and down-home country records, but then again, Lonergan seems more interested in fame as a state of mind than the details of McCrane’s career. This approach makes Driver surprisingly convincing, even if he doesn’t read quite as popularly as Olyphant. (That he appeared in both Inside Llewyn Davis and a trilogy of Star Wars films bolsters his credibility.)

Additionally, Driver has the magnetism to turn heads every time he’s on stage, which is the case in almost every scene of “Hold on to Me Darling.” Although he’s obviously an effective screen presence, it sometimes seems as if his particular physicality – the way he can seem simultaneously sturdy and awkward, as in an ongoing episode in which Strings hangs up a cordless phone – was what initially puzzled me , whether that’s the case was an ad-lib – is designed to command the stage without much fuss. He’s particularly adept at managing the deliberate, often strangely delightful disquiet between his character’s sadness and his comical, sometimes self-centered desperation. Manchester had its moments of surprising humor that deliberately and sometimes thrillingly met moments of unbearable sadness; “Darling” has more overtly comedic passages, although its laughter still relies more on specific phrases or irrational reactions than on jokes.

Comparisons between the two works may seem unfair, but they are revealing when it comes to their main characters: Affleck’s Lee struggles with a tragedy so powerful that it understandably constantly threatens to overwhelm him. Meanwhile, Driver’s Strings faces the unexpected death of an elderly parent; Still damaging, of course, but not quite as shocking – meaning his grief isn’t too insurmountable to use as a vehicle for his own, sometimes narcissistic, problems. This is expressed in two relationships: one with Nancy (Heather Burns), a friendly masseuse who treats Strings immediately after his mother’s death, forming a connection that might not otherwise seem so intense; and another with his “second cousin twice removed” Essie (Adelaide Clemens). Essie maintained a close relationship with Strings’ mother before her death, and it’s hard to say whether Lonergan realizes that “twice removed” was really meant to indicate a separation of another decade or two between her and Strings. (He’s about 40, while she appears to be in her 20s; “once removed” seems more likely to mask that age difference.) But the point is to create enough distance between Strings and Essie to make their feelings suitably confusing and ambiguous .

At least with Essie this is unclear. The strings’ tendency to make grand, sometimes contradictory gestures – romantic and otherwise – could seem insanely unreliable in the hands of another actor; Driver illustrates the mix of stubbornness, hard work and silly pampering that these impulses produce, and with them a man who is unaware of how much he is running from himself. The other actors are consistently strong, but Lonergan’s script doesn’t always pay as much attention to their characters. Some are a bit cartoonish, like Nancy stating that Strings’ mother “makes a beautiful corpse” at the funeral, or the colorful variations on “Jesus Christ” issued by Strings’ brother Mitch (Frank Wood); Others, like Essie, are not necessarily given the time necessary to maximize their emotional impact.

But despite some moments that feel underrated, “Hold On to Me Darling” ultimately takes its time, clocking in at 160 minutes and finishing powerfully, almost on a more visceral level than a purely dramatic one. As with other Lonergan cuts like “This Is Our Youth” and “Lobby Hero,” the live tonal shifts give it a tension that’s difficult to replicate on film – and Driver jumps right in.