Re-Imagined Radio

Archibald MacLeish

Background
Re-Imagined Radio presents MORE information about Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, writer, and Librarian of Congress, who wrote several radio dramas in verse.

MacLeish edited for the Yale Literary Review while he studied at Yale University, 1911-1915. In 1918 he served in France during World War I. MacLeish felt the war was the beginning of a new world order that was sensed rather than felt, and tried to capture his feelings through poetry.

In 1923, he moved, with his family, to Paris, France, and began a career as a poet. MacLeish returned from Europe in 1928, continued writing poetry, but also developed a "public voice" during the worldwide political chaos of the 1930s and 1940s, feeling it was his responsibility as a poet to interpret the times and events using verse.

When he returned to the United States in 1928, MacLeish committed himself to public service as Librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944, assistant director of the Office of War Information in 1942, Assistant Secretary of State from 1944 to 1945, and chair of the US delegation to the founding conference of UNESCO in 1945.

He continued to consider and explore freedom, independence, and government in poetry and verse plays through the rest of his life.

Verse
Verse is related to poetry, a major form of literature, and has several meanings and applications. Two are important for this episode of Re-Imagined Radio. First, verse and poetry both use rhythm, pulse, language, and rhyme to convey a story. But, where poetry uses aesthetic and rhythmic aspects of elevated language and symbolism to convey meaning, verse might be heard as closer to conversation. William Shakespeare is noted for his use of verse in this way.

Second, as a vehicle for storytelling, verse can be very useful. Rhythm and repetition can help keep a story focused even while encouraging audiences to use their imaginations to build on the information provided by verse. Meaning is often conveyed through word choices, their relation to one another, and associations they can make with audiences. Rhyming is not required at the end of every line, but may be used as the conclusion of a group of lines, or "stanza."

"Panic": A Play in Verse
A stage play written in verse, in the form of a Greek chorus. Set during the bank panic of 1933, six years into the Great Depression, "Panic" concerns how individualism turns into individual greed and freedom is replaced by a failing "free enterprise" system. Orson Welles, then 19 years old, played the leading role, his first in an American stage production, for three performances, 14-16 March 1935, at the Imperial Theatre, New York.

At first, MacLeish was concerned for the ability of the young Welles to portray the lead character, 60-year-old McGafferty, modeled on financier J.P. Morgan. But, according to producer John Houseman, MacLeish set aside all doubts where he heard Welles' first reading for the part. "Hearing that voice for the first time in its full and astonishing range, MacLeish stared incredulously. It was an instrument of pathos and terror, of infinite delicacy and brutally devastating power" (Houseman, John. Run Through: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972, pp. 148-151).

On 22 March, Welles began his radio career on the CBS Radio program The March of Time performing a scene from "Panic" for a news report on the stage production (Brady, Frank. Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989, pp. 70-71). Welles continued as a member of the program's reperatory cast for three years.

LEARN more about Orson Welles.

"Air Raid"
William N. Robson commissioned Archibald MacLeish to write a verse play for radio. "Air Raid," in the form of a radio broadcast, is the result. Columbia Workshop aired both the dress rehearsal on October 26, 1938 and the final production on October 27, 1938 (Episode 110). The performances starred Aline McMahon and Orson Welles.

"Air Raid" was inspired by the German and Italian bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, and Pablo Picasso’s response to that slaughter with his painting Guernica. Rather than a political statement, MacLeish intended this verse play for radio to explore the changes in the nature of war and the alterations in the human spirit that permitted such changes. Script available here.

Listen to Columbia Workshop performance of "Air Raid," October 27, 1938.