In 1941, seven years before Lillian Hellman was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, she wrote her third Broadway hit. Watch on the Rhine was born out of Hellman’s fear that anti-Semitism and fascism would spread to the United States. Set in 1940, the play is about a German couple, Kurt and Sara Mueller, who visit a relative’s home in the United States during the war. Another houseguest, a poor Romanian count, blackmails Kurt, who wants to return to Germany to save a friend arrested by the Nazis. The play enjoyed a first run of 378 performances and was turned into an award-winning movie in 1943. A revival helmed by Ellen McDougall is on at Donmar Warehouse. —Jensen Davis