Critics found the basic situation of Jones and the children threatened by political unrest to be too similar to "The Sound of Music", albeit told in an unrelentingly darker manner. They thought that efforts to equate the New York Draft Riots with contemporary protests against the Vietnam War were heavy-handed and counter-productive. "It is worth noting that two of the first night critics came up with the same line, calling "Maggie Flynn" the best Broadway musical since "Her First Roman" — thereby honoring a desperately lousy mishmash that opened three days earlier."