"Makropoulos Secret" Intrigues Both Man on Street and Artist in Workshop

The Harvard Dramatic Club decided that "The Makropoulos Secret", the latest work of Karel Capek, was a play well worth doing, and, according to its esoteric lights, it might have presented this play to empty seats and still it would be worth the doing. The Club would be richer in experience, if not in purse, and a tradition, unique among College amateurs, would have been splendidly justified. But what is interesting to the man in the street--the tired student of business, the professions, or the arts, who weakly craves that the milk of human entertainment be not too curdled by the gall of instruction--is that here is a play not only worth the doing, but decidedly worth the seeing.

Drew the Reviewer To Cambridge

When I heard that Harvard was to produce for the first time in America this hitherto untranslated work of Capek's, I turned my back upon the glittering array of Broadway productions and took the next train for Cambridge, where I arrived just in time to see the curtains part on the first act of the dress rehearsal.

Now I may as well confess that I do not read Czecho-Slovak, although if certain dramatists do not stop writing their curiously interesting--I am tempted to say, confoundedly provoking--dramas in that language, it may soon become a required course for the student of the drama. But I must not forget that I am trying to write this from the standpoint of the man in the audience; the man who may be such a student, but who above all, wants to see a "good show".

The Play Compela Interest

The point that I wish to make is that when I dropped into a seat at the rear of the hall, I had not the slightest idea of the subject matter of the play, and neither did the largest part of the informal rehearsal audience gathered there. This group of stage hands, and a Professor or two, were united with me in a common bond of ignorance. We sprawled in the darkness, and rather defied Mr. Capek and the Dramatic Club to interest us.

Of course you know what happened. We followed this absorbing and fantastic "comedy" with ever-increasing interest. The scene shifters went so, far as to make the short stage waits shorter in order to see the story unfold itself.

Mr. Burrell '24, who edited the translation, has brought the play to us in speech that is at once deft and forcible. He knows how to talk in terms of the theatre--and that is not to talk too much. The subtlety of the dramatist is never shrouded by the verbosity of the translator, and it is not the latter's fault that you are at first plunged into the long-winded legal history of the famous Gregor vs. Pruss case. However, you soon emerge with the blessed realization that it doesn't matter a whit if you did not follow it all. In only goes to show that the wheels of justice grind slow and exceeding fine in Czecho-Slovak, as they do in English.

Capek Powerful Dramatist

The mystery of the attractive protagonist, Emilia Marty, carries you over the rather weak ending of the first act into a second act that is logically and dramatically satisfying. Out of the shadow of the bare stage the characters move into the light which surrounds the world-weary opera singer. She, herself, is removed from reality by the dramatist, but these men and women who come into contact with her are very real. Capek projects them with a tenuous sort of power, following up pathos or amusement with a modern chord of dissonance which startles, arrests, and then intrigues the imagination. The ending of the act is fine in its restraint.

Best and Worst in Last Act

The last act is worth a column in itself. This is what the artful dramatist has been building for all the time. Space forbids a discussion here; besides it is not quite fair to reveal it. It contains the best and the worst of the play. Besides one or two seemingly curious contradictions of character, there is a showy device of dramatic technique in the inquisition scene which seems in poor taste,-- a dissent from good dramaturgy to bad artifice, so it seems to me. You may not agree.

That and other things will provoke discussion, and perhaps a little, thought. Therein lies the beauty of it. But whatever the faults, they are not the fatal ones of boredom. They, as well as the virtues, fulfill the ancient function of the theatre--that place for seeing--and so to repeat my point, it is a play to see.

Driscoll and Sanchez Shine

Mr. Massey, '15, the director, and the actors and technical staff have done their work well. Miss Frances Hyde, in the very difficult part of the heroine, who lives for centuries, beside whom the 60 year old Countess of our own best-seller, "Black Oxen", is a mere babbling infant, brings to the role the voice and the intelligence that it demands. D. D. Driscoll, '26, as Dr. Kolonaty, and Edwards Sanchez, '26, as Baron Pruss, give really delightful characterizations. Both have the rare quality of distinction. Mr. Driscoll possesses the vitality and driving power which is always thrice welcome in an amateur production.

It is a bit curious that the character parts, played as they are by young people, are, with perhaps one or two exceptions, better played than the juveniles.

The Harvard Dramatic Club is to be highly congratulated for presenting one of the most admirable productions of the amateur stage.