Review Roundup: LOVE LETTERS Tour Opens in L.A., Starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal

Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal star in the national tour of LOVE LETTERS, celebrated playwright A.R. Gurney's enduring romance about first loves and second chances. LOVE LETTERS, a special theatrical tour made its official tour launch at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on October 13. For a complete tour schedule and more information, visit: http://www.lovelettersontour.com/tickets-and-tour-schedule

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Shari Barrett, BroadwayWorld.com: The undeniable chemistry between Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal is on full display again in Love Letters, a special theatrical tour that officially launched this week at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. From the moment these two entered the stage holding hands, the audience was totally ready to be swept away into a very different yet in so many way similar tale of two lovers doing their best to just love and be honest with each other throughout their lives even though most of it was spent apart. And we were not disappointed.

Malina Salval,Variety: Forty-five years since "Love Story" turned moviegoers into weepy messes and "Love means never having to say you're sorry" became an international catchphrase, the stars of the movie, Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, have reunited as epistolary soulmates in A.R. Gurney's two-hander "Love Letters." The play seems tailor-made for the pair, who imbue their performances not only with palpable spark and gripping emotional depth but also with an aura of winsome nostalgia for a time when they were the industry's most romantically tragic - and, therefore, most perfect - onscreen couple.

Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter: MacGraw and O'Neal look like a real-life couple as they enter the stage, putting on reading glasses as they take their seats. Their words transport the audience back to its youth as the couple exchange valentines and birthday cards that later become flirty and filled with boarding school gossip. Some letters are lengthy, especially those by Andy, a bloviating future Republican senator, while others are single-sentence exchanges, almost like texting.

Margaret Gray, Los Angeles Times: One of the best moments of "Love Letters" at the Wallis is the first, when, as the lights dim, the stage door opens and MacGraw and O'Neal walk out, hand in hand. What a handsome couple they make. She has allowed her hair to turn white and wears it pulled back. He has gotten a little puffier but has maintained his sandy, tousled curls. They sport conservative clothing, as if on their way to a political fundraiser, and the burnished wood-paneled walls of the Wallis' Bram Goldsmith Theater evoke the tasteful mansion where this fundraiser might be held.

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