Friend Art NYC Reviews and Tickets

69%

(62 Reviews)

Positive

56%

Mixed

36%

Negative

Members say

Funny, Entertaining, Disappointing, Cliched, Indulgent

About the Show

Second Stage Theatre presents a new comedy about love and friendship in NYC's aspiring artist scene.

Kevin and Molly are a 30-something couple about to get married. Their best friend Nate (played by 'American Idol' alum Constantine Maroulis) just broke up with Lil, his much-younger performance artist girlfriend. The group is navigating Gotham living at varying levels of success, which inevitably means attending friends’ basement art shows. In Sofia Alvarez's world premiere comedy, the characters are confronted with what it means to support each other's artistic endeavors and how that impacts their friendships.

Member Reviews (62)

Shallow, Disappointing, Half-baked, Slow

See it if you have friends in the show; you want to support Second Stage (which usually presents much better material); you enjoy self-indulgent art.

Don't see it if you have high expectations. (The abrupt ending implies that even the playwright & director didn't know in what direction to take the play.)

Quirky, Relevant, Original

See it if It presents a real-life situation re: Paintings, Music and Performances. How does one react to a pal's work?

Don't see it if you have pals in the show and will not know how to react to their work

Original, Indulgent, Disappointing, Pretentious, Banal

See it if You are under 35. You enjoy pretentious empty shows. You like a plot that includes drugs. You don't mind loud bad music.

Don't see it if You are looking for an evening of thought-provoking theatre. You are over 35 years old.You enjoy recommending a show to other theatre goers.

Disappointing, Banal, Yawn

See it if you have been dragged to see friend's performance pieces and been forced to render an opinion. Relationships felt forced. Acting was weak

Don't see it if you want an engrossing show.

Entertaining, Original, Cliched, Fluffy, Banal

See it if Entertaining fluff. Ridicules the performance art scene and the folks who populate it.

Don't see it if We've seen it before; it says nothing new. The romance story doesn't add much. The performance art scenes were really bad.

Great acting, Cliched, Ambitious, Thought-provoking

See it if you enjoy well developed characters and good actors

Don't see it if you dislike contemporary light drama

Relatable, Funny, Entertaining, Cliched, Great staging

See it if you have friends whose art you are obliged to support whether or not it's any good.

Don't see it if overly self-involved characters are a turn-off for you.

Banal, Cliched, Disappointing

See it if You appreciate a nice set that uses all possible spaces. You support friends' performance art. You are a fan of Constantine moroulis.

Don't see it if You want an interesting show with believable characters and understandable relationships. You are a fan of good acting.

Critic Reviews (6)

"An insightful comedy-drama...Your affection for 'Friend Art', may depend upon how much interest you have in listening to people in their 30s worry over their not exactly momentous problems. At times, 'Friend Art' comes close to feeling like, um, friend art — of interest primarily to people who may not actually be friends with the show’s creators and performers, but know a lot of people like them. But the play has enough biting, aware humor to move us past the navel-gazing aspects."
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"A queasy little play with an attention-span problem...There's very little material here, since neither the imperiled relationship nor the actual art-making much interests the playwright...There may be no way to portray these characters realistically, nor is there much that director Portia Krieger could have done to help...But the weight on all the actors is great indeed. You feel bad for them. I hope their friends don't come."
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“You won't struggle to find complimentary things to say about this very funny, almost painfully astute play that is sure to resonate uncomfortably with a certain subset of New Yorkers...While the dialogue is very funny, it begins to wear thin in the second half...The play has difficulty landing and its end feels quite abrupt. Despite this shagginess, Alvarez intelligently hits upon a larger angst shared by more than just a few failed artists in Brooklyn.”
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"Alvarez seems determined to prove her thesis correct by crafting a lean evening that's all about pretending to say something while in fact it's not saying anything...It's dry, frequently tripping up in the banality of its own self-deluded adventurousness...Friend art is more or less the only kind of art there is, but it doesn't make for a good reason to see 'Friend Art' when so many other options are available that find much more worth in looking outward than inward."
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"It’s a worthy and interesting idea for a play, and begs us all to examine our actions and motivations for working on our creative endeavors, but even with the fresh and surprising start to this play, it remains in the category of ‘getting there’ and ‘still needs work’...It remains unclear what Alverez is trying to tell us with these scenes. Here lies one of the problems with this untidy unpolished play. Many of these encounters feel like setups rather then organic and real."
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"The thing is, 'Friend Art' doesn't rise above the level its title suggests. There are moments that suggest Alvarez is a good writer and that the ideas in 'Friend Art' have potential...But Alvarez only gives us seeds. She doesn't delve into anything too deeply, and, in fact, seems to abandon what had been presented as the A-plot...I saw glimmers of hope for a character study of a modern young woman, and instead I got friend art.”
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