The End of Longing NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (118)
See it if you're a fan of Matthew Perry, but don't go expecting to see Chandler Bing.
Don't see it if you're turned off by themes of alcoholism and its effects on a relationship. Read more
See it if you want to see a somewhat funny play starring Matthew Perry, you like stories about alcoholism and couples trying to work things out.
Don't see it if a personal project by Matthew Perry based on his own alcoholic past is too indulgent for you. Decent effort & intention, but poorly written.
See it if you're a big fan of Matthew Perry. There are some interesting moments & a few laughs, but the play itself doesn't sustain any bigger ideas
Don't see it if you're looking for real drama. Pretty sure MCC wouldn't have produced it without a big name TV star. My friend left after 30 min.
See it if you are interested in a sitcom under the guise of a play; there is some good acting.
Don't see it if The play is heavy handed and the relationships are not believable. Matthew Perry's acting is questionable and tedious. No heart. Read more
See it if You like Matthew Perry. Nice attempt. Needs work. You want to like the characters.
Don't see it if You are not expecting sitcom style writing for stage. Short scenes with quick scene changes. Rather predictable.
See it if You're a fan of Matthew Perry or Jennifer Morrison. She was excellent; he was typical of recent acting projects.
Don't see it if You're looking for a great story or something unique. Others i know loved it, but this wasn't for me. I found it cliched, sad, implausible.
See it if A fan of Friends TV show and a chance to see Matthew Perry on stage in a play he wrote.
Don't see it if The use of foul language and drunkenness is not you type of entertainment.
See it if You like cliched sitcom jokes & stories about alcoholics.
Don't see it if Seeing someone with addiction issues playing an addict all too well disturbs you & you hate scripts that try too hard to toss in laughs.
Critic Reviews (31)
"I could not get past the implausibility of a gorgeous, smart woman settling for a downbeat older lush. The pairing of a tightly wound texting addict with an easygoing construction worker was only slightly more plausible...While a failure on many levels, the play does have some good one-liners...Lindsay Posner's direction is brisk, perhaps to prevent us from having too much time to think about the play’s flaws."
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“About as vacuous and void of nuance as the clear, empty liquor bottles stacked into Derek McLane’s shiny reversible set...This is fiction, but it’s also pure male fantasy…Kim and Dunn-Baker have a natural chemistry and ease on stage. But the same cannot be said of Perry, whose rather robotic performance is a far cry from the on-screen roles for which he’s known. It doesn’t help that Jack and Stephanie are written as little more than stock characters."
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"The premise of 'The End of Longing' strains credulity...There are only two things that make this show even passably noteworthy. The first is that it's written by and stars Matthew Perry...The second is that Perry has waged his own battles against booze and drugs and has become a major advocate for drug rehabilitation programs...Those experiences inform Jack's climactic speech about the challenges of staying sober. It's the most genuine thing in the play. But, alas, it's not enough to save it."
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“Perry can still deliver a comic line with snap, and he brings a world-weariness and desperation to the part as well as a fearlessness in showing the character’s self-absorption…Yet Perry’s determination as a playwright to show the worst does carry a danger. Some viewers may be pushed to a point of losing any emotional investment in the character, even in director Posner’s stylish production. If ‘The End of Longing’ is not a great or memorable play, it is still a solid piece of work.”
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“A sitcom-like rom-com that, regrettably, is neither amorous nor very funny…Many times the plot strains credulity…Perry at times seems uncomfortable with his own material, setting up jokes without waiting for the lines to sink in…There are glimpses of genuine humor and humanity along the way, particularly in the closing monologue Perry has written for himself, but they’re not enough to sustain matters…Derek McClane’s set is one of the best things here.”
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“It might be possible to believe some of this, intermittently, if Perry’s writing had some center or substance to it, but it seems, instead, to jump arbitrarily from one notion to the next, often losing its way...The pallid efforts at sitcom are succeeded by bursts of soap-opera angst with patches of feel-good sentiment spliced in. Almost nothing seems organic to the characters, a fault redoubled by Lindsay Posner’s direction…It’s a disheartening experience."
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"We find out who these characters really are. And I felt, I knew each of them...I was moved...A younger audience has been able to appreciate the story being told here without falling into the politics of harsh theatre criticisms, reviews and expectations of productions tied to big names...Matthew Perry will always succeed at making us laugh, yes, but I am grateful for this look into the darker side of life as well when things seem positively bleak."
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