He called the play a “drive by shooting” because it, along with numerous articles on the region caused President Kennedy to revitalize the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission which unleashed a torrent of well intended relief that only made things worse. Case in point, the rail car full of cabbages that only sat on the tracks and rotted until the rail car was discarded on a riverbank which caused the surrounding area to take on the distinct “stench of poverty.” Donesky goes on to say that that ordeal even raised “serious doubts about the whole idea of Christian charity.”
The play was also seen as just another narrative that negatively portrayed the Appalachian region. The Kentucky Cycle depicted the people of that region as “mean, quaint, violent, brutish and generally lowdown and sorry.” In doing this, The Kentucky Cycle became very much like the predecessor of many of the productions that would negatively paint the people of Appalachia negatively.