Dead Class was received in Poland as a symbolic closing of contemporary art's neoavant-garde era. Many critics wondered at its subtle density of meanings, pointing out the self-contained nature of Kantor's work. Roman Szydłowski wrote: “There [was] not one empty space in this spectacle.” In a similar tone, in his essay “Signs and Significations in the Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor,” Olgierd Jędrzejczyk argued that every visual and aural element of Kantor's spectacle was embedded with a multiplicity of signs, each one as important as all the others:

Many critics noted that assigning all of the spectacle's elements – actors, props, music, set, text – equal footing creates a natural tension between them, with each element struggling to assert its dominance, or at least to reclaim a traditional sequence of meaning.