The initial critical reception to Rocket to the Moon was mixed. While many critics believed that Odets was attempting to develop his understanding of social and interpersonal relationships, many found his efforts to be lacking. For example, in his New York Herald-Tribune review, Richard Watts Jr. begins by claiming, "Mr. Odets continues to be the most exciting and the most exasperating of the younger American dramatists." Watts ends his review by calling the play a "baffling combination of brilliance and confusion." Like many critics, Watts believes that the play's first act is brilliant but that, in the second half, the play loses its focus and "begins to languish."

Rocket to the Moon (along with Golden Boy) is commonly understood to mark a shift in Odets's dramatic work from a politically aware playwright of the American left to one more focused on interpersonal relations. This claim is...