In a Hilarious and Stirring Revival of ‘Hold On to Me Darling,’ Adam Driver Portrays a Mid-Career Elvis Type Dealing With 21st Century Issues

Existential crises don’t get much funnier than the one suffered by Strings McCrane, the internationally renowned country music crossover star at the center of Kenneth Lonergan’s 2016 play “Hold On to Me Darling.” It would seem Strings has it all — money, women, a big movie career — but when we meet him, this ladykiller has been brought low by the actual death of his best girl: his mama.Imagine a mid-career Elvis, only transported to the 21st century, where he’s forced to contend with social media gossip and his old-school, Southern-bred values are affronted not by hippies, but by latter-day liberals who have been flourishing since “the GOP done merged with the g-ddamn World Wide Wrestlin’ Federation.”In the hilarious and stirring new off-Broadway revival of “Hold On” — helmed by Neil Pepe, who also directed the play’s premiere more than eight years ago — that line is spoken by a real-life film star, Adam Driver, whose lanky, often sullen Strings is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving, while scrupulously avoiding either caricature or sentimentality. The performance is, in other words, true to the text. In more famous works such as “This is Our Youth” and “Lobby Hero,” and in films like “You Can Count on Me” and “Manchester by the Sea,” Mr. Lonergan has examined ordinary, flawed people who have bad luck and make bad choices — people whose shortcomings are depicted with piquant, sometimes bleak humor, but never dismissed or ridiculed.The protagonist in “Hold On” is at first blush a larger-than-life figure, but with the death of his mother Strings has an epiphany, or at least believes he does: He wants to shed the trappings of wealth and fame and lead the simpler, everyday life his mom envisioned for him. Such yearnings among celebrities are, of course, the stuff of cliché, rarely going further than a wistful quote in a glossy magazine profile.Heather Burns and Adam Driver in ‘Hold On to Me Darling.’ Julieta CervantesBut part of what makes Strings such a compelling and amusing character is that, however spoiled and self-centered he is — and he is both, in spades — he has glimmers of self-awareness. “I’m the one who turned my life into a g-ddamn circus,” he tells his sycophantic personal assistant, Jimmy, played by Keith Nobbs with just the right mix of earnestness and unctuousness.Returning to Beaumont, Tennessee, for his mother’s funeral, Strings does entertain the idea of relocating to his childhood hometown and settling down. Visiting his older half-brother, Duke — drolly played by CJ Wilson, who gets to make exclamations like, “Jesus Christ in a downtown Memphis hair salon!” — the apparently never-married superstar imagines working at a feed store and finding romantic stability with a hotel massage therapist he has just met. (The couple’s first encounter and mutual seduction, just hours after Strings learns of his mom’s passing, is documented in the uproarious opening scene.) There are complications, though — among them the massage therapist, Nancy, who is married and has two children and, it would seem, a black belt in passive-aggressive manipulation. “I don’t know anything about …,” she’ll say demurely, whenever Strings is confronted with an ethical dilemma about their relationship, or show business, or pretty much anything. “I was raised with dogs and chickens” — or, at other points, “dogs and horses” and “ducks and rabbits.”When Strings, still convinced he’s on a sure path to lifelong monogamy, predictably falls for the next pretty face he sees — who happens to be his second cousin, albeit twice removed — and discloses his newfound passion to Nancy, her response is a faux-sympathetic, masterfully twisted lecture on “the tragic pattern” of his “sick behavior,” which in her estimation reflects “the struggle for good and evil that is destroying this entire nation.”The sermon is a comedic aria, and Heather Burns, whose Nancy is sharp as a razor and as sly as a fox, delivers it like a virtuoso. Adelaide Clemens provides an ideal foil as the cousin, Essie, who radiates both purity and a gentle but ultimately firm wisdom. She sees Strings, and sees through him, as clearly as anyone.Not that any of these characters are fools, or villains; even Nancy gets a substantial monologue that provides some context for her behavior. The play wraps with a surprise introduction to one last character, someone whose own questionable actions have had a far more profound impact on Strings, and who arrives seeking his own redemption.I’ll say only that the character is played by the marvelous Frank Wood, with a quiet desperation that’s matched by Mr. Driver’s heartbreaking performance in the scene. It’s the bittersweet cherry on top of a play and a production that are as nourishing as they are delicious.

In a Hilarious and Stirring Revival of ‘Hold On to Me Darling,’ Adam Driver Portrays a Mid-Career Elvis Type Dealing With 21st Century Issues

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