"If Jack is convincingly darker than your typical sitcom denizen, Mr. Perry doesn’t have the verbal and dramaturgical skills as an author to take the play—his first—where the character is leading...With few exceptions, the play remains trite even as it approaches seriousness...Under the direction of Lindsay Posner, 'The End of Longing' seems like staged television...Perry has written a synthetic play that mostly points out just how much better 'Friends' was written."
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"The play spends 100 minutes feeding at rock bottom, alternating between coarse quasi-humor, strained melodrama and maudlin romance. Many of the lines seem to think they are jokes, but forget to include the joke part...Writing this play may have been a therapeutic exercise for Perry, who has battled alcohol and drug addiction; you can sense him sweating out the toxins. That’s commendable but personal. The public result is a sweaty, toxic play that only makes you long for an ending."
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"Perry’s reach exceeds his grasp—and then some—in 'The End of Longing,' a contrived comedy-drama...Even when the play seeks to go to deeper places about prostitution and alcoholism and, quite literally, matters of life and death, the script is mired in superficiality and implausibility...Even though the characters are sketchy stick figures, the cast, directed by Lindsay Posner, offers some relief...Perry needs to up his one-note performance—and be quick about it."
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"Lindsay Posner’s direction doesn’t give the actors any way to rise above their stereotypes...Only Kim, with her natural comedic gifts, manages to get an honest laugh from the corny repartee...There’s no question that Perry put his heart into this play, this role, this moment of truth — and the redemptive purging it promises. But the whole enterprise is so self-serving, it really doesn’t need an audience to do its job."
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"Squashes its attempt at tackling dark themes with a glib approach that ill-serves both the subject matter and the performers...The playwright’s inexperience becomes evident from the paper-thin characterizations and lack of credible plotting...Perry at least demonstrates that his extensive TV comedy experience has rubbed off. The evening features many amusing one-liners...Posner keeps the proceedings effectively fast-paced...But he’s unable to infuse the evening with emotional authenticity."
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"There are a few chuckles here, and some comfortingly familiar sarcasm...But for the most part 'Longing' consists of four characters announcing feelings that these actors are likely skilled enough to register without many words...Where Perry’s script and performance does graze the truth is in two monologues that his character delivers about the grip and desperation of addiction...I found myself wondering if 'Longing' might have better succeeded as a one-man show."
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"Embarrassingly terrible. So bad, in fact, that I find it hard to believe that any random person who attends this contrived, mawkish, painfully unfunny and utterly pointless star vehicle can’t write something better...It’s disconcerting that MCC Theater agreed to produce the play, which proves that even a much-respected not-for-profit will put on a play by a once-popular TV actor, regardless of its quality."
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"Mildly entertaining but mostly cringe-inducing...It's basically every rom-com you've ever seen, presented in 100 minutes of predictable plot development and lowest-common-denominator jokes. At least director Posner gives this apparition from the '90s an attractive production...The performances are also decent...Jack...delivers a tearful monologue to an AA meeting. The moment is brave and slightly uncomfortable, but it still doesn't salvage 'The End of Longing' from being a giant cliché."
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