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 a verse 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 terms 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. Later versions