sword. Some of the most striking episodes stretch the patience most: there is a long sequence when a suicide attempt gradually turns to farce." In a 2001 review of Alexander Gelman's A Man with Connections, about a man who is viewed by his wife as responsible for an industrial accident that harmed their son, Lyn Gardner argued that Kroetz handles a similar scenario better in The Nest. In 2016, however, she said The Nest has didactic impulses and "now looks a little simplistic and old-fashioned" despite a topical environmental message. Through the Leaves (1976) Barry V. Daniels lauded Through the Leaves as thematically "far beyond the specific naturalism of Antoine. When the generally middle class, educated audience confronts the essential matter of the play – its profound humanness – the barrier between them and the lower class characters breaks down". Reviewing a 1987 performance of Through the Leaves at the Dallas Theater Center, Jeannie M. Woods praised the play's psychological insight, calling it "a profoundly disturbing play [...] Her Pollyanna attitude seems to flourish on Otto's abuse and on his inability to express his affection. [...] The harsh reality is tempered both by the warmth of Martha and by grotesque comedy." Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote in 1984 that the play "is not pleasant, but it sticks like a splinter in the mind." He said that even certain impediments of the production he had attended (like Downey's English translation being relocated in Queens) did not "mute the jarring strains of [Kroetz's] genuinely disturbing theatrical voice." In 2003, The Guardians Michael Billington gave a Southwark Playhouse performance four out of five stars and wrote, "What makes Kroetz an exceptional dramatist is that he links behaviour to economics." He also argued, "Without a hint of patronage or condescension, Kroetz shows how both characters are victims of circumstance." Gardner called it "a gripping but gruelling dissection of a relationship that flounders on mismatched desire, conditioned responses and the utter failure of language [...] one of his best plays". Tom Fool (1978) Mark Brown praised the playwright as understanding the 'double burden' of class and gender carried by working class women, and added that "arguably his best writing is reserved for Otto's solitary musings on his position [...] The great beauty of Tom Fool is that it manages to address the politics of capitalism without a hint of polemic. Kroetz relies