After viewing the Joint Stock Theatre Group performance at The Public Theater, John Beaufort of The Christian Science Monitor billed Fen as "a fascinating mosaic in theatrical terms."
"[2] In 2004, Paul Taylor of The Independent argued of the play, "It's amazing how much detail and insight Churchill manages to pack into a succession of spare, short scenes that here succeed each other with a heightened, dream-like fluency.
The critic argued that "Churchill doesn’t lay individual blame, but constructs a social constellation in which each character is interdependent with the others, even if their access to power and wealth differently marks their experience."
Wicker praised the set design as evocative and also stated that the dialogue "is suitably earthy, enriched with colloquialisms and nuggets of folklore that turn the play into something more interesting and freestanding than the straightforward diatribe against early ‘80s capitalism it threatens to be at the start.
"[6] Don Aucoin of The Boston Globe reviewed the 2012 Factory Theatre performance positively, stating (with regards to the phrase "class warfare") that "Churchill has always understood which side is the aggressor.