Letters from Max NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (119)
See it if If you like a love letters type of play. Communication through letters, email... moving.
Don't see it if The story for the most part is good. A more upbeat musical.
See it if You want to be inspired and moved by the intelligence, insight and spirit of a young poet who passed away. Excellent acting and music.
Don't see it if You won’t enjoy poetry, sad moments, and reflection on life & death.
See it if Like different forms of theatricalizing a story.
Don't see it if You only want a full blown three act play.
See it if you enjoy poetry and like thoughtful, academic readings and ideas. Show is moving and a good discussion of death and art, but it is very sad
Don't see it if you prefer action to a very wordy play.
See it if you have lost someone beautifully acted, perfect set, see it.
Don't see it if if you have lost someone we know going in he has died. he was real there is no way to change the end.
See it if you want a very moving look at a teacher and student who become dear friends.
Don't see it if you want a regular type of play.
See it if you want to experience a thoughtful and deeply moving story that touches on the fragility of life and features strong acting and writing.
Don't see it if you want a lighthearted and/or action-driven show. This is a contemplative piece that stays with you after you leave the theater.
See it if You have a tender heart. It was an emotional experience that I found moving, enriching and meaningful. Excellent writing by Sara Ruhl.
Don't see it if Sad stories are not of interest to you.
Critic Reviews (14)
CRITIC'S PICK: “If ‘Letters From Max’ were any other play, I would think dreaming up a fantasy bookstore display... was a strange response. But it feels like a natural extension of the conversation pinging back and forth between Sarah and Max. Theirs is so much wider and more voracious a discussion than any stage could hold.”
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"This epistolary play sends the message that a life cut short can call us to embrace our own lives and—as Max tells Sarah in a dream—to feel them swaying."
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"It gives you an extremely close perspective on the experience of knowing and then losing him, so much so that it may feel intrusive to be there."
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"Inspired by Ruhl and Ritvo's posthumously published collection of correspondences, the production ... is a straightforward adaptation, with much of the spoken language coming directly from Ruhl and Ritvo's notes. It is amazing how effortlessly these missives manage to capture their divergent personalities, and how the performers manage to tap into something almost ethereal in their delivery."
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“A metaphysical conversation conducted in the lengthening shadow of death...It is interesting that Signature Theatre happens to be producing Letters from Max, which contemplates eternity and the mystery of existence, at the same time it is presenting Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise, in which the protagonist, an evangelical obsessed with end-times theology, struggles with the irreducible complexities of contemporary life. These playwrights are wrestling with life's biggest questions, which is another way of saying they are doing their jobs.”
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"In the ritualistic acts of sending and responding to letters, however, the epistolary drama provides a space for an intellectual and spiritual meditation on love, death, and the function of art."
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"As played with an off-handed yet committed approach, Hecht and Ritvo are amusing with each other,... As Ritvo worsens, 'Letters From Max', a work about art and death and about how art deals with death, takes precedence."
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“The epistolary play is a tricky business. Portraying two people who are communicating with each other but not really talking to each other...Thanks to Kate Whoriskey’s clever but never cluttered staging, ‘Letters From Max’ almost never stands still."
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