Theatre in Review: Hold On To Me Darling (Atlantic Theater)

	Timothy Olyphant, Jenn Lyon. Photo: Doug Hamilton

Like most country singers, Strings McCrane, the protagonist of Kenneth Lonergan's play, specializes in songs of heartbreak and hard times. Lonergan has experienced plenty of both in the past few years, what with mixed-to-negative reviews for Medieval Play and The Starry Messenger and his much-wrangled-over, little-seen film Margaret. The good news is that Hold On To Me Darling marks a return to form in many respects: Lonergan once again populates the stage with lively, funny truth-tellers, ready to offer their take-no-prisoners opinions at the slightest provocation. Even when it seems to have no idea where it is going, it retains a briskly entertaining attitude about show business, dysfunctional families, and its protagonist's philandering ways.

When we meet him, Strings is experiencing a moment of existential crisis in a Kansas City hotel room, a state precipitated by the news of his mother's death. Typically for him, his reaction is one part grief and one part performance; he is inconsolable and he wants everyone to know it. He rejects the sex tape that two lady friends have sent over to cheer him up. He won't even take a drink. As he explains to Jimmy, his nonplussed personal assistant, his mother never approved of his life as a country crossover star; all she wanted was for him to meet a nice girl and settle down. "But I'm thirty-nine years old, and I ain't never met a woman yet who look at me twice for myself," he moans. "All they see is Strings McCrane. But he ain't there no more, Jimmy. How can they grab hold of a man who isn't there? How can you touch somethin' you can't feel?"

"Uh-oh," says Jimmy. "I think I hear a new song comin' down the pike!"

Actually, Strings' mother had a point. Currently, he is starring in the tabloids, thanks to his unraveling relationship with a Hollywood star. He is stuck making a science-fiction picture that he has little use for. He is not excited about either his soon-to-be released album or his upcoming tour. So he does what he usually does when down in the dumps -- he falls in love. The current object of his affection is Nancy, the hotel's house masseuse. (Jenn Lyon, who plays Nancy, has a funny moment when struck dumb at the sight of Strings' chiseled torso.) Anyway, after a few minutes of listening to Strings crying the blues about his empty, empty life, they are canoodling on the sofa. The fact that Nancy is married somehow seems irrelevant to the occasion.

The rest of Hold On To Me Darling follows Strings as he heads home to Tennessee for his mother's funeral, where, among other things, he attempts to trade in Nancy for Essie, his winsome, widowed second cousin twice removed, and to purchase a local business for himself and his brother, Duke, to operate. Or, as Duke calls it, "this bozo celebrity feed store." By this point, Nancy and Essie have engaged in high-stakes negotiations over the rights to Strings, who is in debt to the tune of $400 million for the various entertainment-industry projects he has abandoned.

As Strings, the kind of sensitive soul who always knows how to strike a grief-stricken, self-loathing pose for maximum effect, Timothy Olyphant walks a fine line, holding his character up to ridicule without ever totally sacrificing his humanity. He is especially amusing when he chooses to take on the sins of America: "I feel partly to blame....Bein' at the top of the entertainment world, or nearly so. Havin' such an impact on the popular culture, if you know what I mean. When all I set out to do was play a song or two for folks." Strings' main activity involves pleasing whomever he is with -- a policy that sets in motion all sorts of train wrecks -- and Olyphant makes credible such crazily self-destructive behavior.

Olyphant is surrounded by a gallery of deadpan comic actors who get full value out of their assigned roles. Keith Nobbs' Jimmy is defined by a devotion to Strings that can't entirely be described as either hero worship or simple platonic friendship. He even fondly recalls the night when two women approached them in a bar: "I'd seen 'em sizin' us up, figurin' which one of them's gonna leave with which one of us...and then Strings'd leave with both of them!" He adds, fondly, "If that's happened once, it's happened a hundred times." C. J. Wilson offers plenty of priceless attitude as Duke. Praising Duke's wife, Strings says, "Now don't fool yourself about that Ellie, old Buddy. She is worth her weight in gold." "Be quite a windfall if that was literally true," replies Duke, in a voice that all but admits he knows it's never going to happen.

On the distaff side, Lyon fully captures the wiliness of Nancy, who sees Strings as her new meal ticket but is also canny enough to point out his pattern of finding a new female savior every couple of days. She appeals to his swollen ego, explaining how American society depends on his making the right choices, and she reveals a much harder side as she moves to cut Essie out of the picture. Essie, played with a perfect southern accent by the Australian actress Adelaide Clemens, is both touchingly vulnerable and defiantly determined not to be used by Strings.

So enjoyable is everyone, and so tasty their dialogue, that it is well into the second act before you realize that Strings hasn't been at all affected by the play's events and Lonergan has no apparent plan for ending the play -- not even when Jonathan Hogan, in a touching performance, makes an eleventh-hour entrance as a blast from Strings' past, in a scene that doesn't provide the needed resolution. The author also punts on key points -- we never get a clear picture of Strings' mother, who was either a withholding monster or a lovely lady of considerable rectitude. Scene by scene, Hold On To Me Darling entertains; in its total effect, it disappoints. A friend of mine described it as a fine collection of one-act plays, and that may be the correct way of looking at it.

In addition to managing such a fine cast, the director, Neil Pepe, gets excellent work from his design team. The turntable of Walt Spangler's set keeps revealing new locations -- hotel rooms, bars, funeral homes, living rooms, and that feed store, among others -- all of them lit with understated realism by Brian MacDevitt. The costumes, by Suttirat Anne Larlarb, are ideal for each character; I was especially touched by the thoughtful, if not really correct, black outfit that Essie wears to the funeral. David Van Tieghem's sound design includes several selections of country tunes meant to represent Strings' output.

If the playwright has once again found his gifts for character and dialogue, his sense of structure is still missing in action. At nearly three hours, it is a slightly confounding work. Still, it's good to once again be excited about Kenneth Lonergan. -- David Barbour