HOLD ON TO ME DARLING
by Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Neil Pepe
Starring Adam Driver
Lucille Lortel Theatre
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
Nearly a decade later, I’m still not sure what to make of Hold On to Me Darling, an almost O’Neill-length comedy—I think comedy— by the redoubtable Kenneth Lonergan, in revival at the Lucille Lortel. It’s about a narcissistic Country Western star of films and recordings. His name is Strings McCrane (Adam Driver) and he’s haunted by the recent death of the mother who never thought that much of his accomplishments. He has no compunction about affectionately abusing the loyalty of his fawning assistant Jimmy (Keith Nobbs) nor of casually, serially womanizing with serious pronouncements of devotion. Not that there’s any shortage of people willing to be seduced by his celebrity and as willing to compromise themselves in the process—but they do have various burn-out points. It is, after all, masseuse Nancy (Heather Burns) who first comes onto him, before he decides in turn to come onto his cousin Essie (Adele Clemons). The only character not easily swayed by Strings—not easily, not for long and never self-deceptively—is his blue-collar brother Duke (C.J. Wilson); though it pays to note that Strings hasn’t done very much of anything to help Duke out of his blue collar existence, save to front him a loan once, long ago. (For my money, Duke is the best character in the piece, his wry cynicism making him unwittingly the play’s wittiest character.) Spoiler-avoidance keeps me from discussing the remaining character, Mitch (Frank Wood).
The production, in essence a remount, much the same as the original, with half its original cast (Nobbs, Clemens and Wilson) has received lots of deserving approbation for the quality of Lonergan’s characterization and dialogue as well as a fine cast under Neil Pepe’s unobtrusive but sure-handed return as director; but the characters don’t really move that far forward, if at all; and as for stripping away layers to reveal secrets or strip away façades to deeper truths…really, not so much. The compounded details seem only to make the characters more of what we already know them to be. And the play ends with a glimmer of redemptive hope for Strings that seems totally unearned.
But the audience, perhaps even more than last time, stays engaged, and the play sure gets its laughs. Nor will I deny that it earns them, as well as the enthusiastic curtain call applause.
One wonders, though, if the audience truly fathoms Strings’ pathology or if they just see him as a roguish brat prone to misadventure. That ambiguity may be part of Lonergan’s intention…but given the pervasiveness of similar resistance to calling out monsters for what they are, these days, it’s one that strikes me as uncomfortable.