Hold on to Me Darling review – Adam Driver powers electric Kenneth Lonergan play

Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York

The actor makes a compelling lead in the return of the playwright’s textured 2016 play about a celebrity returning home for his mother’s funeral

In 2016, playwright and film-maker Kenneth Lonergan released the film Manchester by the Sea, a devastating and beautifully detailed portrait of a grief-stricken man, played by Casey Affleck; both Affleck’s performance and Lonergan’s screenplay went on to win Academy awards. That same year, a different Lonergan drama about grief received far less attention, as his play Hold On to Me Darling premiered off-Broadway, with Timothy Olyphant playing a world-famous country singer reeling from the recent loss of his mother. Still Lonergan’s most recent produced play, Hold On to Me Darling returns to New York for a limited engagement with about half the original cast intact, but now featuring Adam Driver in the role originated by Olyphant.

Superficially, Olyphant sounds like a better fit to play Strings McCrane, a singer who returns to his small Tennessee hometown for his mother’s funeral, and starts seriously toying with the idea of sticking around, possibly abdicating his life as a musician and popular movie star. No contemporary figure particularly comes to mind as equally successful in mega-budget sci-fi movies and down-home country records, but then, Lonergan seems more interested in fame as a state of mind than the particulars of McCrane’s career. This approach makes Driver surprisingly convincing, even if he doesn’t read quite as folksy as Olyphant likely did. (Having appeared in both Inside Llewyn Davis and a trilogy of Star Wars movies aids his credibility.)