As time has passed, Maxwell Anderson has been best remembered for the plays he wrote in verse, which attempted to revive a lost art. When he was writing, he was generally associated with the social focus of his plays, although his reputation as a social critic has not held up as well as the reputations of other playwrights. At one time, for example, Anderson was considered almost an equal of Eugene O'Neill, who also satirized the modern social order and drew from theater's rich history; now, O'Neill's works are performed much more often than Anderson's. Because political issues change, Both Your Houses could be expected to lose relevance as time goes by, but critics still consider it fondly, even though they do not write about it as one of Anderson's major works.

When it was first performed, the play was considered timely, ground-breaking material. In 1933, Barrett...