The Fall of the City
Encyclopedia
The Fall of the City by Archibald MacLeish
is the first American verse play written for radio. It was first broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System (today CBS
) as part of the Columbia Workshop
radio series on April 11, 1937, with a cast that featured Orson Welles
and Burgess Meredith
. Music was composed by Bernard Herrmann
. It is an allegory
on the rise of Fascism.
MacLeish acknowledeged that he used the expected Nazi takeover of Austria
, the Anschluss
, as a basis for the work. According to MacLeish, the setting of the play was inspired by the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which he had visited in 1929, and in particular the conquest of the city without resistance by Hernán Cortés
in 1521, as described by contemporary conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo
. He also used as inspiration an Aztec myth that told of a woman who had returned from the dead to prophesize the fall of Tenochtitlan just before its conquest.
A pacifist Orator then addresses the crowd, urging a non-violent acceptance of the conqueror's arrival, arguing that reason and appeasement and eventual scorn will ultimately prevail against the conqueror.
The momentary calming of the crowd achieved by the Orator is interrupted by the arrival of a Second Messenger, who reports that the newly-conquered peoples have embraced the conqueror. The Priests of the city then exhort the people to turn to religion – "Turn to your gods" – and almost instigate the sacrifice of one of the citizens, before a General of the city interrupts them. The General calls for resistance but the people have already given up hope and renounced their freedom echoing the prophecy "Masterless men must take a master!" as the armour-clad Conqueror enters the city. As the people cower and cover their faces, the Conqueror ascends the podium and opens his visor, with only the Radio Announcer seeing that the visor and armour are empty, observes "People invent their oppressors." But by then. the people are now acclaiming their new master. The Announcer concludes: "The city has fallen..."
in Manhattan, New York; the site was chosen for the acoustic properties needed for the production. Orson Welles played the announcer, Burgess Meredith
portrayed the Orator, and Adelaide Kline the voice of the dead woman. Additional cast members included House Jamison, Edgar Stehli, Carleton Young
, Dwight Weist, Brandon Peters, Dan Davies, Guy Repp, William Pringle
, Karl Swenson
and Kenneth Delmar. The principal director was Irving Reis
who was also the producer. The production involved the construction of a soundproof isolation booth for Welles. 200 extras were used for the crowds, drawn from New York University
students, New Jersey high school students and boys clubs'.
To simulate a crowd of 10,000, Reis recorded the sounds of the extras during rehearsals, including their shouts. During the actual performance, these recordings were played at four different locations in the Armory; the recordings were played at slightly different speeds to give the effect of a larger crowd.
The score was written by then musical director of the Columbia Workshop, Bernard Herrmann. (The music for the denouement was later re-used by Herrmann in his 1938 cantata Moby Dick to indicate the sinking of the Pequod.)
The first broadcast was selected by the New York Times as one of the outstanding broadcasts of 1937.
. It must be a dress rehearsal because the broadcast took place at 7 pm, at which time the sky would not have been as bright as the skylights indicate.
To the far right and close to the foreground is the CBS broadcasting booth, with "Columbia Broadcasting System" emblazoned on it. The two men crouching behind it are probably technicians checking connections. To the left of the broadcasting booth is a woman sitting on the floor, while a man and woman are seated in two of the five chairs in the foreground (the woman on the floor and the technicians behind the booth would have occupied the three empty seats). These five individuals are probably technical staff of CBS.
The broadcasting booth obscures what appears to be two sources of light, one emanating from the booth, and another from additional equipment barely visible on the far right in the middleground.
All the remaining individuals are participants in the broadcast. Towards the background right (but to the left of the CBS broadcast booth) are the 200 students and boys supplying the crowd noises. A hidden floor lamp is shining on a group of men and women holding scripts, who are probably the "voices of citizens" who speak antiphonally near the end of the play. Closer to the middleground are two microphone stands. At the one on the right is a man facing the crowd, dressed in a white shirt and suspenders; this is probably director Irving Reis. At the stand on the left is an actor in a suit reading from a script; this is possibly Burgess Meredith as the Orator, or the actor that plays the Messenger.
To the left of this actor is the booth, inside of which Orson Welles was portraying the Announcer. Over this booth appears a head, but as this head is much smaller than the actor standing in front of the microphone, the head is probably that of a person standing in the background with the crowd (this could be either the Orator or the Messenger).
To the left of the both, there is a screen in front of which sit actors in chairs; the one directly in front of the screen is bent over, studiously following his script, while others are slightly to the left of him.
Behind these actors stands Bernard Herrmann on a podium (there is a person behind him, i.e. to our right). Herrmann's body faces the small orchestra. Only three percussionists are visible; they are standing at the back of the orchestra, the left-most human figures. There appear to be three timpani in front of them. The woodwind and brass players are not entirely visible. Herrmann's body is facing the orchestra, and his hands are raised as if prompting a cue. However, his head and face are turned toward the actor at the microphone.
Herrmann's pose is a key source that suggests three possible moments at which the picture was taken:
The third option can be discarded since there would be no need for so many actors to be holding scripts if the play was seconds from being over. If Herrmann was waiting for the cue to end, his right arm would be in motion and blurred. So it can be presumed that this photograph was taken during the Announcer's speech, shortly before the first music cue.
under the direction of Edith Burnett, adapted the play for dance as part of the school's commencement program. Oliver Waterman Larkin
designed the sets.
The play was broadcast again in the Columbia Workshop series in 1939, this time from the Hollywood Bowl
(though without any musical accompaniment), where the crowds were portrayed by students from the University of California, Los Angeles
. A CBS television version was aired in 1962, as part of the Aspect series, starring John Ireland
, Colleen Dewhurst
, Ossie Davis
and Tim O'Connor
. The production was produced by Don Kellerman and directed by John J. Desmond. Jack Iams, TV critic of the New York Herald Tribune
, observed "It is equally applicable today to the threat of world communism. It will always be applicable as long as mankind cherishes and protects the concept of liberty."
The play was made into an opera composed by James Cohn
. It had its premiere at the Peabody Institute
on March 1, 1962, conducted by Laszlo Halasz
.
In 2009, the radio station WNYC
aired a new version featuring a musical score by Wendy & Lisa
. It was preceded by a documentary on the original broadcast which featured interviews with the film critic Leonard Maltin
and the director Peter Bogdanovich
. The production won a Gracie Award for the director.
The Fall of the City was added to the National Recording Registry
in 2005.
MacLeish described the theme of The Fall of the City as "the proneness of men to accept their own conqueror, accept the loss of their rights because it will in some way solve their problems or simplify their lives—that theme had also been projected in terms of [the expected Anschluss] of Austria."
The experimental aspect of The Fall of the City was "the use of the natural paraphernalia of the ordinary broadcast, that is to say, an announcer in the studio and a reporter in the field...a very successful device it turned out to be. It gives you a Greek chorus
without the rather ridiculous self-consciousness involved in carting a chorus in and standing them against the wall and having them recite. These people have a function; they are recognized by large audiences of nonliterary people as being proper participants."
When asked about the significance of the conqueror, MacLeish replied: "The conqueror is not the central figure. It's the people, crowding around and approaching him...It's a play about the way people lose their freedom. It's not a play about the Fascist master."
In later years, MacLeish recalled the first staged production at Smith College. "I realized at the time how much The Fall of the City owed to not being seen, how much it owed to the fact that the imagination conceives it, because these choral figures kept getting terribly in the way of what I had seen in my own mind...I didn't like the Smith production very much. There were several stage productions that I saw, but I didn't like any of them."
wrote: "An examination of the printed work confirms the first impression. Here are all the technical excellences: the alternating shifts in accent; the adroit juxtaposition of oratory and plain speech; the variations of rhyme, assonance, and dissonance; above all, the atmosphere of suspense which this poet can communicate so well. The play is one mounting tension, thrilling in its evocation of terror and fatality. The reader is convinced that these are events, not images, that "the people invent their oppressors," and that, with the fall of the city, "the long labor of liberty" is ended."
In describing the idiomatic use of radio, Untermeyer continued: The effectiveness of this verse play is increased by Mr. MacLeish's recognition of the resources of the radio and his employment of the Announcer as a combination of Greek Chorus and casual commentator. Writing for the radio, he has indicated a new power for poetry in the use of the word in action, without props or settings, the allusively spoken word and the "word-excited imagination."
Orrin E. Dunlap Jr. of the New York Times lamented the fast pace of the actors dealing with weighty words. But an unsigned review in TIME magazine noted: "Aside from the beauty of its speech and the power of its story, The Fall of the City proved to most listeners that the radio, which conveys only sound, is science's gift to poetry and poetric drama, that 30 minutes is an ideal time for averse play, that artistically radio is ready to come of age, for in the hands of a master a $10 receiving set can become a living theatre, its loudspeaker a national proscenium."
Aaron Stein, writing for the New York Post
, criticized the clash between typical radio fare and serious drama: "...we are bothered by the feeling that a less mystically taciturn script might have offered easier going to an audience that has been pretty thoroughly conditioned away from listening with anything like concentration. We are not sure that the drama held the attention of its audience. If in that respect it failed, the failure is not the fault of the drama or of the audience but of the background of broadcasting which created in the listener a habit of only casual attention...Mr. MacLeish's theme was presented in term that were more thoughtful than dramatic. His bitter tale of human unwillingness to sustain the burden of freedom could to advantage have been more concretely particularized, but we are more concerned with his use of the microphone than with the purely literary aspects of his work. The drama is frankly written as a radio job, utilizing firmly established radio forms for the presentation of its narrative." Despite his feeling of incongruity, Stein concluded: "...it is a distinguished step in the direction of the creation of a real theatre of the air; because one hearing indicated that it is richer in meaning than a radio ear is likely to apprehend immediately, and because to date the library of radio drama has nothing as good to put on the air."
Reception of The Fall of the City was positive enough that CBS commissioned MacLeish to follow up with another play, Air Raid. CBS took the unusual step of broadcasting both the dress rehearsal on October 26, 1938, followed by the finished production on October 27, 1938.
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
is the first American verse play written for radio. It was first broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System (today CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) as part of the Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
radio series on April 11, 1937, with a cast that featured Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
. Music was composed by Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
. It is an allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
on the rise of Fascism.
Background
MacLeish submitted the play in response to a general invitation by the producers of the Columbia Workshop for the submission of experimental works.MacLeish acknowledeged that he used the expected Nazi takeover of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
, as a basis for the work. According to MacLeish, the setting of the play was inspired by the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which he had visited in 1929, and in particular the conquest of the city without resistance by Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century...
in 1521, as described by contemporary conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:...
. He also used as inspiration an Aztec myth that told of a woman who had returned from the dead to prophesize the fall of Tenochtitlan just before its conquest.
Synopsis
The play takes the form of a radio broadcast from a plaza in an unnamed city. A Radio Announcer reports as a crowd awaits the reappearance of a "recently dead" woman who has risen from her crypt on the previous three nights. On her appearance, the woman prophesizes that "the city of masterless men will take a master". As the panicking crowd consider the meaning of the prophecy, a Messenger arrives warning of the impending arrival of a conqueror. The Messenger describes the life of those who have been conquered as one of terror – "Their words are their murderers – Judged before judgment", even as many of them actively invite the oppressor in.A pacifist Orator then addresses the crowd, urging a non-violent acceptance of the conqueror's arrival, arguing that reason and appeasement and eventual scorn will ultimately prevail against the conqueror.
The momentary calming of the crowd achieved by the Orator is interrupted by the arrival of a Second Messenger, who reports that the newly-conquered peoples have embraced the conqueror. The Priests of the city then exhort the people to turn to religion – "Turn to your gods" – and almost instigate the sacrifice of one of the citizens, before a General of the city interrupts them. The General calls for resistance but the people have already given up hope and renounced their freedom echoing the prophecy "Masterless men must take a master!" as the armour-clad Conqueror enters the city. As the people cower and cover their faces, the Conqueror ascends the podium and opens his visor, with only the Radio Announcer seeing that the visor and armour are empty, observes "People invent their oppressors." But by then. the people are now acclaiming their new master. The Announcer concludes: "The city has fallen..."
First broadcast
The play was broadcast live from the Seventh Regiment ArmorySeventh Regiment Armory
The Seventh Regiment Armory, located at 643 Park Avenue also known as in New York, New York, United States, is an historic brick building that fills an entire city block on New York's Upper East Side.- History :...
in Manhattan, New York; the site was chosen for the acoustic properties needed for the production. Orson Welles played the announcer, Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
portrayed the Orator, and Adelaide Kline the voice of the dead woman. Additional cast members included House Jamison, Edgar Stehli, Carleton Young
Carleton Young
Carleton Scott Young was an American character actor born in New York City, New York and known for his deep voice.-Private life:...
, Dwight Weist, Brandon Peters, Dan Davies, Guy Repp, William Pringle
William Pringle
William Pringle may refer to:* William Pringle , British Liberal Party politician, Member of Parliament for Penistone 1922–1924...
, Karl Swenson
Karl Swenson
Karl Swenson was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.-Biography:Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, Swenson made several appearances with Pierre-Luc Michaud on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who...
and Kenneth Delmar. The principal director was Irving Reis
Irving Reis
Irving Reis, born May 7, 1906, in New York City – died July 3, 1953, in Woodland Hills, California, was a radio program producer & director, and a film director.Reis was the creator of the experimental anthology program on the radio, Columbia Workshop...
who was also the producer. The production involved the construction of a soundproof isolation booth for Welles. 200 extras were used for the crowds, drawn from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
students, New Jersey high school students and boys clubs'.
To simulate a crowd of 10,000, Reis recorded the sounds of the extras during rehearsals, including their shouts. During the actual performance, these recordings were played at four different locations in the Armory; the recordings were played at slightly different speeds to give the effect of a larger crowd.
The score was written by then musical director of the Columbia Workshop, Bernard Herrmann. (The music for the denouement was later re-used by Herrmann in his 1938 cantata Moby Dick to indicate the sinking of the Pequod.)
The first broadcast was selected by the New York Times as one of the outstanding broadcasts of 1937.
Photograph
The remarkable photograph shown at the outset of this article was apparently taken during a dress rehearsal in the Seventh Regiment Armory, and reveals much about the original broadcast and reveals something about radio techniques in 1937. Though it may look under-illuminated, the dark hue is caused by lighting insufficient for taking a photograph in the Armory's vast drill hallDrill hall
A drill hall is a place such as a building or a hangar where soldiers practice and perform military drill. In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, the term was also used for the whole headquarters building of a military reserve unit, which usually incorporated such a hall...
. It must be a dress rehearsal because the broadcast took place at 7 pm, at which time the sky would not have been as bright as the skylights indicate.
To the far right and close to the foreground is the CBS broadcasting booth, with "Columbia Broadcasting System" emblazoned on it. The two men crouching behind it are probably technicians checking connections. To the left of the broadcasting booth is a woman sitting on the floor, while a man and woman are seated in two of the five chairs in the foreground (the woman on the floor and the technicians behind the booth would have occupied the three empty seats). These five individuals are probably technical staff of CBS.
The broadcasting booth obscures what appears to be two sources of light, one emanating from the booth, and another from additional equipment barely visible on the far right in the middleground.
All the remaining individuals are participants in the broadcast. Towards the background right (but to the left of the CBS broadcast booth) are the 200 students and boys supplying the crowd noises. A hidden floor lamp is shining on a group of men and women holding scripts, who are probably the "voices of citizens" who speak antiphonally near the end of the play. Closer to the middleground are two microphone stands. At the one on the right is a man facing the crowd, dressed in a white shirt and suspenders; this is probably director Irving Reis. At the stand on the left is an actor in a suit reading from a script; this is possibly Burgess Meredith as the Orator, or the actor that plays the Messenger.
To the left of this actor is the booth, inside of which Orson Welles was portraying the Announcer. Over this booth appears a head, but as this head is much smaller than the actor standing in front of the microphone, the head is probably that of a person standing in the background with the crowd (this could be either the Orator or the Messenger).
To the left of the both, there is a screen in front of which sit actors in chairs; the one directly in front of the screen is bent over, studiously following his script, while others are slightly to the left of him.
Behind these actors stands Bernard Herrmann on a podium (there is a person behind him, i.e. to our right). Herrmann's body faces the small orchestra. Only three percussionists are visible; they are standing at the back of the orchestra, the left-most human figures. There appear to be three timpani in front of them. The woodwind and brass players are not entirely visible. Herrmann's body is facing the orchestra, and his hands are raised as if prompting a cue. However, his head and face are turned toward the actor at the microphone.
Herrmann's pose is a key source that suggests three possible moments at which the picture was taken:
- Slightly before the first music cue (in the play: "Even a few old men are dancing")
- At the conclusion of the first music cue (in the play: "That's odd! The music has stopped")
- Just before the second and final music cue (in the play: "The city has fallen")
The third option can be discarded since there would be no need for so many actors to be holding scripts if the play was seconds from being over. If Herrmann was waiting for the cue to end, his right arm would be in motion and blurred. So it can be presumed that this photograph was taken during the Announcer's speech, shortly before the first music cue.
Later versions and adaptations
The first staged production took place in June 1938, when students at Smith CollegeSmith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
under the direction of Edith Burnett, adapted the play for dance as part of the school's commencement program. Oliver Waterman Larkin
Oliver Waterman Larkin
Oliver Waterman Larkin was an American art historian and educator. He won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Art and Life in America.- Biography :...
designed the sets.
The play was broadcast again in the Columbia Workshop series in 1939, this time from the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
(though without any musical accompaniment), where the crowds were portrayed by students from the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
. A CBS television version was aired in 1962, as part of the Aspect series, starring John Ireland
John Ireland
John Ireland may refer to:* John Ireland , Anglican priest and philanthropist* John Ireland , American politician...
, Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst was a Canadian-American actress known for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'...
, Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
and Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor may refer to:*Tim O'Connor , actor, appeared in Peyton Place and General Hospital*Tim O'Connor , American college football coach*Tim O'Connor , Australian actor, writer and director...
. The production was produced by Don Kellerman and directed by John J. Desmond. Jack Iams, TV critic of the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
, observed "It is equally applicable today to the threat of world communism. It will always be applicable as long as mankind cherishes and protects the concept of liberty."
The play was made into an opera composed by James Cohn
James Cohn
James Cohn is an American composer born in 1928 in Newark, New Jersey. After taking violin and piano lessons in his native town, he studied composition with Roy Harris, Wayne Barlow and Bernard Wagenaar, and majored in Composition at Juilliard, graduating in 1950.He has written solo, chamber,...
. It had its premiere at the Peabody Institute
Peabody Institute
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a renowned conservatory and preparatory school located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Charles and Monument Streets at Mount Vernon Place.-History:...
on March 1, 1962, conducted by Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz
Laszlo Halasz was an American opera director, conductor, and pianist of Hungarian birth. In 1943 he was appointed the first director of the New York City Opera; a position he held through 1951...
.
In 2009, the radio station WNYC
WNYC
WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
aired a new version featuring a musical score by Wendy & Lisa
Wendy & Lisa
Wendy & Lisa are a music duo consisting of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. They began working with Prince in the early 1980s and were part of his band The Revolution, before branching out on their own and releasing their debut album in 1987...
. It was preceded by a documentary on the original broadcast which featured interviews with the film critic Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
and the director Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
. The production won a Gracie Award for the director.
The Fall of the City was added to the National Recording Registry
National Recording Registry
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
in 2005.
Analysis
Director Irving Reis made much of radio's first verse play. "Hitherto, radio has been presenting drama that was frankly and avowedly adapted from stage writing. The men who are now becoming interested in radio writing, however, realize that there is small relationship between the stage and air and that a new form must be evolved...I believe that this production will definitely mark a turning point in the development of a new art form. Future historians of radio will see it as a most significant occasion."MacLeish described the theme of The Fall of the City as "the proneness of men to accept their own conqueror, accept the loss of their rights because it will in some way solve their problems or simplify their lives—that theme had also been projected in terms of [the expected Anschluss] of Austria."
The experimental aspect of The Fall of the City was "the use of the natural paraphernalia of the ordinary broadcast, that is to say, an announcer in the studio and a reporter in the field...a very successful device it turned out to be. It gives you a Greek chorus
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus is a homogenous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action....
without the rather ridiculous self-consciousness involved in carting a chorus in and standing them against the wall and having them recite. These people have a function; they are recognized by large audiences of nonliterary people as being proper participants."
When asked about the significance of the conqueror, MacLeish replied: "The conqueror is not the central figure. It's the people, crowding around and approaching him...It's a play about the way people lose their freedom. It's not a play about the Fascist master."
In later years, MacLeish recalled the first staged production at Smith College. "I realized at the time how much The Fall of the City owed to not being seen, how much it owed to the fact that the imagination conceives it, because these choral figures kept getting terribly in the way of what I had seen in my own mind...I didn't like the Smith production very much. There were several stage productions that I saw, but I didn't like any of them."
Reception
In reviewing the play in print (it was published shortly after the broadcast), critic and poet Louis UntermeyerLouis Untermeyer
Louis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.-Life and career:...
wrote: "An examination of the printed work confirms the first impression. Here are all the technical excellences: the alternating shifts in accent; the adroit juxtaposition of oratory and plain speech; the variations of rhyme, assonance, and dissonance; above all, the atmosphere of suspense which this poet can communicate so well. The play is one mounting tension, thrilling in its evocation of terror and fatality. The reader is convinced that these are events, not images, that "the people invent their oppressors," and that, with the fall of the city, "the long labor of liberty" is ended."
In describing the idiomatic use of radio, Untermeyer continued: The effectiveness of this verse play is increased by Mr. MacLeish's recognition of the resources of the radio and his employment of the Announcer as a combination of Greek Chorus and casual commentator. Writing for the radio, he has indicated a new power for poetry in the use of the word in action, without props or settings, the allusively spoken word and the "word-excited imagination."
Orrin E. Dunlap Jr. of the New York Times lamented the fast pace of the actors dealing with weighty words. But an unsigned review in TIME magazine noted: "Aside from the beauty of its speech and the power of its story, The Fall of the City proved to most listeners that the radio, which conveys only sound, is science's gift to poetry and poetric drama, that 30 minutes is an ideal time for averse play, that artistically radio is ready to come of age, for in the hands of a master a $10 receiving set can become a living theatre, its loudspeaker a national proscenium."
Aaron Stein, writing for the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, criticized the clash between typical radio fare and serious drama: "...we are bothered by the feeling that a less mystically taciturn script might have offered easier going to an audience that has been pretty thoroughly conditioned away from listening with anything like concentration. We are not sure that the drama held the attention of its audience. If in that respect it failed, the failure is not the fault of the drama or of the audience but of the background of broadcasting which created in the listener a habit of only casual attention...Mr. MacLeish's theme was presented in term that were more thoughtful than dramatic. His bitter tale of human unwillingness to sustain the burden of freedom could to advantage have been more concretely particularized, but we are more concerned with his use of the microphone than with the purely literary aspects of his work. The drama is frankly written as a radio job, utilizing firmly established radio forms for the presentation of its narrative." Despite his feeling of incongruity, Stein concluded: "...it is a distinguished step in the direction of the creation of a real theatre of the air; because one hearing indicated that it is richer in meaning than a radio ear is likely to apprehend immediately, and because to date the library of radio drama has nothing as good to put on the air."
Reception of The Fall of the City was positive enough that CBS commissioned MacLeish to follow up with another play, Air Raid. CBS took the unusual step of broadcasting both the dress rehearsal on October 26, 1938, followed by the finished production on October 27, 1938.
External links
- Archibald MacLeish's The Fall of the City at the Internet Archive
- The Fall of the City – New Theater of Sound WNYC article featuring the documentary produced for 2009 revival