‘Hold On To Me Darling’ Review: Adam Driver Has The Country Blues In Off Broadway Revival

deadline.com:

Not far into Kenneth Lonergan‘s fame-is-hell-but-what-isn’t fable Hold On To Me Darling, Adam Driver, playing a country music crossover megastar about to begin filming his latest blockbuster, pledges in an accent so thick it could dent Johnny Cash’s belt buckle that he’s going to turn his famous life around “just as soon as I get done with this goddamn space movie.” The line, coming from Kylo Ren himself, gets a laugh, a slow build sort of thing that picks up steam as the audience makes the connection between the Driver on stage and the Driver of real life.

The actor doesn’t wink, and in fact tosses off the line without much ado, but with a play as unwieldy as this one, best to accept a laugh where you can.

It’s not that Hold On To Me Darling – opening tonight Off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre – is bad (it isn’t, though there are moments that do their best to convince otherwise).

Confounding might be a more accurate description, starting with this: In the eight years since its last Off Broadway production, directed, like this one, by Neil Pepe, how could the supremely gifted Lonergan (This Is Our Youth, The Waverly Gallery, Lobby Hero) not come to some decision about what, exactly, this shaggy dog is supposed to be about?