Review Roundup: World Premiere of THE LAST OF THE LOVE LETTERS Opens Off-Broadway

Atlantic Theater Company's world premiere production of The Last of the Love Letters officially opened yesterday, Monday, September 13 at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20th Street). The Last of the Love Letters was written by and features Ngozi Anyanwu, is directed by Patricia McGregor, and features Tony Award Daniel J. Watts and Xavier Scott Evans. The production is a limited engagement through September, 26 2021.

Two people contemplate the thing they love most and whether to stick it out or to leave it behind. To stay. Or to go. That is the question. The Last of the Love Letters is just that: a plea and a painful goodbye wrapped into one.

The Last of the Love Letters features scenic design by Yu-HsuanChen, costume design by Dede Ayite, lighting design by Stacey Derosier, sound design by Twi McCallum, and casting by The TelseyOffice; Will Cantler, CSA, Karyn Casl, CSA, and Destiny Lilly, CSA.

Let's see what the critics are saying...

Jesse Green, The New York Times: If you thus think, as I did, that this will be a straightfoward play about romance - with all its pleasures, including the bittersweet ones of recalling it after it's gone - think again. Although "The Last of the Love Letters," like Anyanwu's "The Homecoming Queen" and "Good Grief," does concern the long aftermath of a troubled affair, its alternative title indicates larger ambitions: "For All the Lovesick Mad Sad Geniuses."

David Finkle, New York Stage Review: By the final dimming of the lights, it ought to be said, Anyanwu doesn't seem to have decided on an appropriate finale. Maybe that's due to her having misgivings about a relentlessly downbeat attitude. (How autobiographical The Last of the Love Letters is we will undoubtedly never know.) But that's quibbling about Anyanwu's probe of the ins-and-outs, the ups-and-downs, the pluses-and-minuses of love. Her impassioned probe is a stunning addition to the annals of playwriting gazes at love and its infinite possibilities.

Naveen Kumar, New York Theatre Guide: Even more so than these previous plays, Love Letters taps into still-raw memories broadly shared by nearly everyone in the room - of life in isolation, at the end of a fraying rope. There's a radical kind of comfort in coming together again to find reassurance that none of us is alone in our experience, even when we are.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: By the time it ends, it's unclear how the riotous sparks of the first half could lead to such a dour ending. That unwelcome diversion aside, Anyanwu's play reveals her to be a sharp analyst of the things that keep us coming back for more, even when we think we know better.

Thom Geier, The Wrap: "...Anyanwu seems to pile on additional themes as the 70-minute show progresses, from the isolation of living in quarantine to the plight of Black artists and their fear of erasure in contemporary society. It's a bit too much heft for this slender show to bear."