"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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