It premiered in 1965 at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut one year after Kennedy's most well-known piece, the Obie Award-winning Funnyhouse of a Negro.
Critic Michael Feingold of the Village Voice wrote: “With Beckett gone, Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theatre.” Walter Kerr reviewed the Off-Broadway production for the New York Times, writing: "It is conceivable that this is a kind of theatre and that by simply immersing ourselves in it, without asking rational questions of it or trying to force it into some other shape, we might find ourselves clothed by the rain of images, fed by the accumulating overlay.
I wouldn't rule the possibility out, any more than I'd wave away Miss Kennedy as a writer: There is a spare, unsentimental intensity about her that promises to drive a dagger home some day.
With the script’s opening direction of 'The scene is a New York subway car is the Tower of London is a Harlem hotel room in St. Peter’s,' it’s clear that playwright Adrienne Kennedy created an impossible world to stage.
But despite these elements and an emotional performance from Van as the character of She, the nonexistent narrative of Kennedy’s incredibly abstract text weighs down the production, making it almost incomprehensible by the end."