Hold on to me darling — hold tight

These days when every news headline seems to have a scary taint of the surreal, the best respite to be found is to turn off CNN (or its ilk) and try to find competitors for the gold ring for shocking news. Try to remember that our coming presidential elections have had precedence in ugly campaigns fought throughout history — and to date America has mulled through by accepting that some candidates — at their core are just human beings behaving badly — as they’ve done before. And with luck, a leader will emerge who will be able to somehow restore civility.

In reflection, part of the strength of “Hamilton” is that Lin Manuel Miranda is able to show us that the base face of some humans’ nature has never changed, and that the folks who gave birth to our country were not saints, but human beings with some of the same flaws bombarding us from our TV screens and news headlines.

Which leads to the hope you will immediately head downtown to visit with folks who in three-plus moving hours bring us the good news that it’s never too late to learn certain truths that may explain the adult you’ve become may have bitter roots, but is never beyond being rescued by learning how one’s youth leads to the man or woman we become, with emotional residue creating a high wall to block out past disappointments.

In Kenneth Lonergan’s magnificently wrought “Hold On To Me Darling” currently playing at the Atlantic Theater Company we make the handsome, virile, impossibly self-centered acquaintance of Strings McCrane, brilliantly embodied in the “hot” sculptured frame of a most memorable Timothy Oliphant (think award nominations!). Strings is a country music and film icon in his late 30s coasting at the crest of a career that has rescued him from the roots of his miserable childhood in small-town Beaumont, Tennessee, who was cursed with a mother who never understood the basics of mother love and mind-whipped her son, with her (we discover much later) gentle husband finally fleeing her nest.
Strings, also having finally flown her coop has returned home as “Hold On …” begins for his mother’s unexpected funeral, a sudden death with no chance for any reckoning of his mom’s selfish behavior that made him run for cover via his talents. With Neil Pepe’s magnificent direction a sure co-partner in this hopefully headed for Broadway production (with some judicious cutting of the penultimate scenes where a return to String’s former home base for the funeral brings on an emptiness in his life (real or momentarily adopted) that leads him to what becomes an eventually snap decision to leave the pressured rat race of unfulfilling fame and join his brother in opening a pipe dream of a country store.

Lonergan ensures we won’t leave the Atlantic unsatisfied by creating a second act where Strings’ female relationship — a gentle distant cousin Essie (wonderful Adelaide Clemens — (who can’t resist his charms leading to a haunting experience for the young woman) who fortunately turns out to have country gumption in her thinking. Actually every role is a standout, from Jenn Lyons masseuse who first gets to admire the country idols butt, to devoted go-fer Jimmy, the singer’s loyal companion of 12 years raptly minding his beloved boss’s time and energies. But its Olyphant’s strings who grabs our heart — a poor enormously rich idol who knows he doesn’t FEEL like he has it all — at all, finally rebelling in a rash moment where too many wanting women in his life spoil any lure of the perks they offer.

Even his already married fiancé ((Adelaide Clemens) a Southern Belle ready to join him in his bankrupting snap decision to return to his roots can’t finally capture her beloved’s devotion. (Or is it “care to … in the face of his coming bankruptcy. How the simple life works out for Strings and his down–to-earth brother is not the deux ex machina that brings the country idol an epiphany. That arrives in the person of a visitor that remains for you to discover at the Atlantic.

In its final moment Lonergan provides an ultimately thought-provoking message for us to take home: that there is hope bearing in every child’s heart to salvage the past-however distant — here opening even the sliver of a new welcoming door in the country idols future.

“Hold On To Me Darling” also gives us an insiders view of the barren emotional life that money and fame cannot replace, emphasized by Lonergan’s portrait of a man whose wealth and adulation cannot ever match his need for a mother’s approval — denied from the first scenes of this wise play to its final revelations.
Hoping to see a future for Lonergan’s brilliant treatise but right now head down to the Atlantic for some of the most spot-on observations on life’s challenges in memory The Linda Gross Theater, tickets at (866) 811-4111.

Book now: With a May 1 deadline for debuts in the 2015-16 season now is the final month for entries you’ll want to visit soon to open. Think “American Psycho” (the tale of a Wall Street nightmare (April 21, (212) 239-6200.”Cagney” (opens April 3 brings us a tough guy who was also a Hollywood song and dance man long before his wayward days and ways! (212-239-6200) And don’t miss F. Murray Abraham in “Nathan the Wise” at CSC, portraying a Jewish man living in 12th century Jerusalem at a time of religious and political turmoil. (Has it ever been otherwise? Through May 1, tickets at classicstage.org, (212) 352-3101 or (212) 239-6200.