[Night and Day], garrulous yet thin, is said to signal a new Stoppard. The new one is actually old-fashioned. The earlier Stoppard was shallow but glittery and adventurous. Now he lumps through a relatively conventional play that he tries to brighten with some grabs at his first fine, careless, rhetorical rapture. Stuck in a stock play, his allegedly diamond dialogue now looks the rhinestone it really always was. (p. 32)

Stanley Kauffmann, "Theater: Friends and Lovers," in Saturday Review (copyright © 1980 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. 7, No. 3, February 2, 1980, pp. 30, 32.∗