[While They Are Dying Out] has been publicized and reviewed as Handke's most overtly political work, the words "most" and "overtly" must be taken in context or they are extremely misleading—though They Are Dying Out seems to be about Big Business….

This [play] is funny and lyrical, with a larger-than-life protagonist, lots of social satire, surreal irruptions, sensuality, violence. There's enough conniving almost to equal a plot, enough dissolution of self almost to equal a psychology. It is, indeed, easily pleasurable as you watch—but tricky, even opaque, when you think about it later.

The people dying out are embodied by Quitt, a character apparently fashioned from a mixture of homage and debunking. Quitt is a grand talker and a sharklike corporate leader….

The main action is not in the story but in the way roles and gestures go off-key just enough to indicate chasms and earthquakes...