Six Degrees of Separation opened in New York City in 1990 and was an Immediate critical and popular success. Outstanding reviews and full houses greatly extended the play's original ten-week run. Eva Resnikova, writing in the National Review, called it "the lone original American play of the season." Guare's play went on to win the New York Critic Circle Award for Best Play of the Year and London's Olivier award, and to be nominated for a Tony Award In the New York Times, Frank Rich wrote that viewing Six Degrees of Separation was "a transcendent theatrical experience that is Itself a lasting vision of the humane new world of which Mr. Guare and his New Yorkers so hungrily dream."

Critics applauded the actors, the characters, and Guare's imagination and skill. Newsweek reviewer Jack Kroll wrote of Paul, he "is a major creation: he's a figure of dizzying...