In the following review, Kauffman presents "The Kentucky Cycle" negatively through its lack of themes.

A decade after MTV confirmed that the American attention span has been reduced to approximately two and a half minutes, it's more than a little ironic that playwrights are offering endurance tests in lieu of dramas. Less than a year after the highly praised Part I of Tony Kushner' s epic Angels in America opened on Broadway, Robert Schenkkan' s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Kentucky Cycle has finally arrived on the Great White Way. Consuming six hours of playing time evenly divided two discrete seatings (as compared to the roughly seven hours of Angels in America), The Kentucky Cycle is more an event than a play. Its commercial success will depend on how many people are willing to invest $85 or $100 for seats to prove that their power of concentration is greater than that...