| HOLD ONTO ME DARLING Yesterday | |
| Posted by: sergius 10:47 am EDT 10/14/24 | |
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| Lonergan’s a lush writer. He writes capacious scenes—here they’re mostly two handers—that slowly graduate from the shallows to the depths of relatedness and back. At just over three hours, HOLD ONTO ME DARLING is a long play, but it flies by. It’s a sort of proof that there is little more absorbing and often funnier than watching people trying (and not) to reach each other. I saw this play at the Atlantic several years ago and have no memory of it being so droll. It’s probably Adam Driver—startlingly good—who’s responsible for foregrounding the humor here. He’s routinely vexed, banging along despite one comic frustration after another. HOLD ONTO ME DARLING is a real conversation piece though not in the sense of being something to talk about but rather something that’s about talking, about how we speak—and speak—and so often don’t say what we mean or mean what we say. Now this sort of thing is either interesting to you or it’s not. Nothing much happens in the play—a self absorbed famous country singer comes apart after the death of his mother—but, emotionally speaking, a lot goes on. Lonergan finds absurdity in grief which is surprisingly apt. Sooner or later, we’re addled by loss and maybe, as it punctures our omnipotence, nothing is funnier. HOLD ONTO ME DARLING is an expertly played tonic for living. | |
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