["Watch on the Rhine"] is still charged with meaning; the moral and political questions with which it deals continue to torment us…. [Surely we] go on asking two of the oldest and most anguished of questions: "Am I my brother's keeper? And if I am, and if this is a good thing, then how evil dare I to become in the name of keeping him?"
Miss Hellman has always been a champion of the well-made play, and it's true that one detects in the neat plotting of "Watch on the Rhine" a taint of melodrama that grows less and less tolerable with age.
Brendan Gill, "Popular Theatre: 'Watch on the Rhine'," in The New Yorker (© 1980 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.), Vol. LV, No. 48, January 14, 1980, pp. 55-6.
This is a free excerpt of 131 words. There are 135 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Hellman, Lillian 1906–: Critical Essay by Brendan Gill Access Pass.
