SOURCE: "Bottom Girls: Love Among the Potato Fields," The Wall Street Journal, 24 June 1983, p. 24.

Below, Gold asserts that the atmosphere overwhelms the message in Fen.

A particular way of life, a distinct sense of place—these aren't the things we usually expect to discover at the theater. Movies and books seem better equipped to reveal the inner workings of a village or a landscape; we look at plays to learn the inner workings of a soul.

So to say that British playwright Caryl Churchill succeeds, in Fen, in rendering the texture of life in the rich agricultural flatlands of England's Fens district is to credit her with something of a feat. And to add that, in the end, Fen is less satisfying than the previous Churchill efforts seen in New York, Cloud 9 and Top Girls, is merely to add that, in the end, we want more of theater...