The Fall of the City
First edition (Farrar & Rinehart, April 26, 1937)
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| Genre | Radio drama |
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| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Home station | CBS Radio |
| Hosted by | Columbia Workshop |
| Starring | |
| Written by | Archibald MacLeish |
| Directed by | Irving Reis |
| Produced by | Irving Reis |
| Recording studio | Seventh Regiment Armory, New York |
| Original release | April 11, 1937 – present |
The Fall of the City by Archibald MacLeish is the first American verse play written for radio. The 30-minute radio play was first broadcast April 11, 1937, at 7 p.m. ET over the Columbia Broadcasting System (today CBS) as part of the Columbia Workshop radio series. The cast featured Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith. Music was composed and directed by Bernard Herrmann. It is an allegory on the rise of Fascism.
MacLeish submitted the play in response to a general invitation by the producers of the Columbia Workshop for the submission of experimental works.
MacLeish acknowledged 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.
The city of masterless men
will take a master.
There will be shouting then:
Blood after!
The play takes the form of a radio broadcast from a plaza in an unnamed city. An 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.
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