The Fall of the City
Season 10, Episode 4
May 16, 2022
The city of masterless men will take a master
Re-Imagined Radio celebrates Columbia Workshop and its experiments with radio storytelling with an experiment of our own. We combine Willamette Radio Workshop's performance of Archibald MacLeish's "The Fall of the City" with The Voices' performance of Jack J. Ward's "Great Day for a War" to provide present day context.
"The Fall of the City" is a story about the ambiguous relationship humans have with freedom. "Great Day for a War" is an unpublished, previoulsy unperformed story about a broadcasting company's scheme to increase its viewers during ratings week.
Access the episode script
Background
This is the second tribute Re-Imagined Radio has offered to Columbia Workshop, perhaps the most important American anthology radio program, and its mission to explore and present new forms of radio storytelling.
Learn more about Columbia Workshop.
The first was in 2015 and featured performances of "The Fall of the City" and "R.U.R." by Willamette Radio Workshop, directed by Sam A. Mowry.
For this tribute we sample a recorded performance of "The Fall of the City" by Willamette Radio Workshop and a dramatization of "Great Day for a War" by Jack J. Ward. Ward's radio drama is unpublished, and previously unperformed. We thank him for permission to use the portions we did.
"The Fall of the City"
Episode 35, April 11, 1937
First broadcast by the Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) as part of Columbia Workshop radio
series. Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith starred, Irving Reis directed. The 30-minute broadcast
originated from the Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, a location large enough to accommodate the
hundreds of extra actors required for the crowd scenes. The cast included . . .
House Jameson (Studio director)
Orson Welles (Announcer)
Adelaide Klein (Dead Woman)
Carleton Young (1st Messenger; Later played Philip Gault, in the OTR crime series The Whisperer)
Burgess Meredith (Orator)
Dwight Weist (2nd Messenger)
Edgar Stehli (Priest)
William Pringle (General)
Guy Repp, Brandon Peters, Karl Swenson, Dan Davies, Kenneth Delmar (Antiphonal Chorus)
A second broadcast, September 28, 1939 (episode 156), originated in the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, California. The cast featured Myron McCormick, Burgess Meredith, Dorothy Meredith, Ted Osborne, and Earl Ross.
Listen to Columbia Workshop performance of "The Fall of the City," April 11, 1937.
"The Fall of the City" was written by Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982). The second of three three verse plays: "Panic: A Play in Verse" (1935), "The Fall of the City" (1937) and, "Air Raid" (1938).
Learn more about Archibald MacLeish and his two other verse plays.
MacLeish submitted his script→ for "The Fall of the City" in response to a call from Irving Reis, director of Columbia Workshop radio series for experimental work. Remembering working with Orson Welles on his first verse play, "Panic," MacLeish promoted him for the leading role as "Announcer." Featuring Welles, "The Fall of the City" episode, first broadcast April 11, 1937, is the first American verse play for radio and is often praised for its stylistic innovation and social power, and as an illustration of the artistic potential of radio broadcasting.
Learn more about Orson Welles.
Plot
A radio announcer, voiced by Orson Welles, reports from the plaza of a nameless city, where a crowd
awaits the appearance of a woman who has risen from her grave for the previous three nights. She appears
and predicts
The city of masterless men will take a master.
There will be shouting then: Blood after!
The first messenger brings news of a conqueror's arrival. He says those conquered live in terror. A pacifist orator argues for non-violent acceptance of the coming conqueror. Reason and appeasement and scorn will eventually conquer the conqueror, he says.
A second messenger arrives and reports the conquered peoples have embraced the conqueror. The priests of the city then advise the people of the city to "turn to your gods" and almost instigate the sacrifice of a citizen before they are interrupted by a general who calls for resistance. The citizens have already given up, however, their will broken by the hope that their loss of freedom will solve their problems or simplify their lives.
The conqueror arrives and ascends to the podium. He raises his metal visor. Only the radio announcer can
see that the suit of armor is empty. He concludes
People invent their oppressors. The city is fallen.
Reception of "The Fall of the City" was positive. The writing, use of sound effects, and radio production techniques were all noted as opening a new era for radio drama. Read a review in Time magazine (Theatre: Fall of the City→, 19 April 1937).
Inspiration
"The Fall of the City," the first verse play written for American radio, focuses on the collapse of a city under an unnamed dictator. MacLeish drew from two sources. The first was his 1932 long poem "Conquistador" with its descriptions of the uncontested conquest of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan (tã-nóch-tët-län, now Mexico City) by Hernán Cortéz of Spain in 1521. MacLeish visited Tenochtitlan in 1929, specifically the Zocalo, the great square at the center of the city, where he learned the Aztec legend of a woman who returned from the dead to prophesize the fall of Tenochtitlan just days before its conquest (Drabeck, Bernard A. and Helen E. Ellis, eds. Archibald MacLeish: Reflections→. Amherst, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986, pp. 106-112). MacLeish won a Pulitzer Prize for "Conquistador" in 1933, his first of three.
The second inspiration was the projected Anschluss, the takeover of Austria by Nazi Germany which did not actually happen until 12 March 1938 when German troops marched across the border unopposed by the Austrian military. On 10 April, Germany forced Austrian citizens to vote for the annexation of Austria by Germany. Those who voted against annexation could have lost their jobs, or their lives.
Theme
MacLeish said the theme of "The Fall of the City" was "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" (Drabeck, Bernard A. and Helen E. Ellis, eds. Archibald
MacLeish: Reflections→. Amherst, The University of Massachusetts
Press, 1986, pp.
107).
Response
Critics have suggested "The Fall of the City" is not about the conqueror, but rather about the way
people lose or sustain the burden of freedom. We want freedom but we also like order and structure, even
if that order and structure is imposed upon us. How much freedom and liberty are we willing to sacrifice
to enjoy convenience and comfort, order and structure? Because of this ambiguity, we both fear and
welcome the conqueror. While we vacillate, the Conqueror approaches slowly. Often unnoticed. Unbelieved.
Until it is too late.
Great Day for a War
Re-Imagined Radio has collaborated with Jack J. Ward previously.
Listen to "Coast To Coast," four audio dramas by Ward, or A Chaste Kiss & Chrysalis," two other audio dramas.
Learn more about Jack J. Ward.
"A Great Day for a War" was an unpublished and unperformed story about a broadcasting company's scheme to increase its viewers during ratings week when Ward sent it along for consideration. Samples from this audio drama provide a contemporary twist to our reconsideration of "The Fall of the City." Award-winning Canadian director, producer, and writer, Jack J. Ward is very talented, and very generous. He allowed Re-Imagined Radio to use whatever parts of his story we wanted, how we wanted. Thank you, Jack.
Production
Contents
Combines samples from "The Fall of the City" performed by Willamette Radio Workshop and a dramatization of Jack J. Ward's "Great Day for a War." Both used by permission.
Cast
"The Fall of the City"
Performed by members of Willamette Radio Workshop
Sam A. Mowry
Chris Porter
Linda Goertz
Holly Spencer
Tim McKinney
Ricardo Delgado
Mark Homayoun
Adam S. Moore
Aticus Mowry
"Great Day for a War"
Performed by The Voices
Sam A. Mowry as Daniel Stone
Mago Weston as Anna-Marie Hammond
Sam Gregory as GlobalWeb Announcer
Eric Newsome as GlobalWeb News Service Announcer and President
Stephanie Crowley as Sheila MacDonald
Jeff Pollard as Colonel Brachenswich
Credits
Sound Design and engineering by Marc Rose
Recording by Robert Kowal and Michael Gandsey
Foley conductor Martin Gallagher
Produced by Sam A. Mowry, Robert Kowal, and Marc Rose
Co-Producer Cynthia McGean
Directed by Sam A. Mowry
Recorded at PCC Sylvania in Portland, Oregon
Produced by special arrangement with Mr. Richard B. McAdoo
Significance
Columbia Workshop is noted for its mission to explore and present new forms of radio storytelling.
"The Fall of the City" by Archibald MacLeish is the first American verse play for radio and is often praised for its stylistic innovation and social power, and as an illustration of the artistic potential of radio broadcasting. This performance by Willamette Radio Workshop is particularly powerful.
"A Great Day for a War" by Jack J. Ward was an unpublished and unperformed story about a broadcasting company's scheme to increase its viewers during ratings week when Ward sent it along for consideration. Samples from this audio drama provide a contemporary twist to our reconsideration of "The Fall of the City." Award-winning Canadian director, producer, and writer, Jack J. Ward is very talented, and very generous. He allowed Re-Imagined Radio to use whatever parts of his story we wanted, how we wanted. Thank you, Jack.
Comments
Thank you for a lovely melding of MacLeish's "Fall of the City" with my "Great Day for a War." Just so
tickled pink to hitch my star with "The Fall of the City" and Archibald MacLeish. I feel thrilled to
have my name connected with him, and even more so with Re-Imagined Radio. The acting was superb. The
production was on fire! And the script was a seamless blend.
— Jack J. Ward, author of "Great Day for a War"
We're thrilled and excited to hear this amazing fusion of the classic, "The Fall of the City" with an
unproduced Jack J. Ward script "Great Day for a War"!
— Sonic Society
Producer's Notes
What an amazing creative undertaking, combining "The Fall of the City," by Archibald MacLeish, the first American radio play in verse, with "Great Day for a War," a previously unpublished, unperformed radio play by Jack J. Ward.
Collected
Sonic Society #733-Sonic Cinema Reimagined
Mutual Audio Network
August 30, 2024
"A new classic"
Sonic Society #733-Sonic Cinema Reimagined
(052222)
Mutual Audio Network
July 2, 2024
Promotion
Press
Ward, Jack J. Great Day for the City→. The Sonic Society, 16 May 2022.
Graphics
"The Fall of the City" trailer by Holly Slocum and Marc Rose
