In Doris Lessing, Mona Knapp writes that Lessing's "main interest in the theater spans the years from 1958 to 1962, and was no doubt inspired by her work as a substitute theater critic for The Observer for a few weeks in 1958." As Knapp says, the plays Lessing wrote during this period "were written concurrently with The Golden Notebook and are thematically related to it."

The play opened in London, in March 1962, to mixed reviews. Critics were appreciative of certain elements of the play and of the acting and staging but found fault with the play's structure. In her review in Theatre World, for example, Frances Stephens writes that "the best passages are concerned with [Anna and Dave's] fierce self-analysis as each in turn looks back to childhood, his in America and hers in Australia. It is part of a desire to unravel the enigma of life and to...