The Farrellys have another houseguest, Teck de Brancovis, an impoverished Romanian count "with good manners and odious character"[2] who has been conspiring with the Germans while living in Washington.

[4] Produced and directed by Herman Shumlin, Watch on the Rhine premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on April 1, 1941, and ran for 378 performances, closing February 21, 1942.

[2][5] Hellman accompanied the production to Washington, D.C., for a command performance at the National Theatre on January 25, 1942, that celebrated President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday.

Being primarily interested in people, she has shown how deeply fascism penetrates into the hearts and minds of human beings.Atkinson thought it not as well structured as her earlier plays, The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes, but termed it "the finest thing she has written."

Five months later Atkinson provided another assessment of the cast, calling it "a performance that breeds vast respect for the theatre as a mature form of expression."

But, since Miss Hellman has communicated her thoughts dramatically in terms of articulate human beings, Watch on the Rhine ought to be full of meaning a quarter of a century from now when people are beginning to wonder what life was like in America when the Nazi evil began to creep across the sea.Life magazine called Watch on the Rhine "the most eloquent" of the many anti-Nazi plays found on Broadway in recent years.

[10] The Communist New Masses faulted Hellman's vague depiction of fascism while praising "the sincerity of purpose of a dramatist who possesses potentialities far beyond the grasp of any other writer on the contemporary theater scene.