Karel Chapek (1890-1938) is a multifaceted person. An intellectual, he was a writer, journalist, playwright, translator and photographer.
Brief information
His work can be conditionally divided into two parts:
- Capek considers the inner life of a person as an individual and tries to explore the possibilities and limits of human cognition. Example: there was an alchemist Hieronymus Makropoulos. The means of immortality was invented by the writer.
- Capek creates utopian dramas and novels in which he criticizes social dramas and problems of modern society. These works show how he fears the development of fascism, seeing in it a real threat to society.
The Munich Agreement and the transfer of the country of Germany became a personal tragedy for the writer. He died of pulmonary edema several months before his arrest of the Gestapo.
Comedy: Act One
It takes place in the office of the lawyer Kolenaty. Archivist Vitek disassembles and removes numerous folders and papers in their places. Holding the Gregor-Prus case in his hands, he, as a professional, is moved by the fact that the case has been going on for almost a hundred years, and today it seems to be over. The daughter of archivist Christa comes. The girl, with her voice, learns to sing and performs in the theater, but today she listened to the rehearsal of the great opera singer Emilia Marty. She sang so brilliantly, so technically unattainable that the girl, sobbing, expresses a desire to leave singing forever. Emilia Marty enters the office.
To everyone's amazement, she shows interest in Gregor's case. She is told all the vicissitudes of a complex process. And the singer, in turn, tells the lawyer where to find the controversial will, so that the process definitely won Gregor. For the information provided, thanks to which the process will be won, she asks for a Greek manuscript from Gregor. The name Makropoulos, his tool has not yet been voiced.
Threefold action
Theater after performance. Emilia Marty was a huge success. Christina and Janek Prus, in love with her, appear. Gradually, all the characters gather and congratulate Emilia Marty. But Gregor notes that when she sings, she is bored. Talking about this and that, they touch upon historical issues, and Marty re-reads everything, telling such subtleties and details about which no one has read anywhere. Prus suddenly asks if the name Makropoulos is familiar to Emilia. His remedy, again, no one mentions. Emilia dodges, answering, and drives Prus off. Gregor confesses Marty's love, but she, bored, sitting, falls asleep. Gregor leaves, Janek Prus appears. Emilia asks him to steal an envelope from his father. It contains the composition - the Makropoulos remedy. Only the singer knows this. The conversation is overheard by Father Prus and promises to give her an envelope at night.
Action Three
Hotel. Emilia's bedroom. Morning. The Prus, half-dressed, at the request of Emilia, hands her an envelope. She is satisfied - Makropoulos’s remedy is finally hers. An excited servant comes from the house of Prus and calls his master. He leaves for a short while, and returning, falls into a chair and says that his son shot himself because Marty fell in love, and she chose his father. Emilia is cold to everything.
But then Vitek, Gregor and Christina appear, who accuse Marty of Janek’s death. And they begin to understand who wrote letters written almost a hundred years ago, but in modern ink, since the handwriting is without a doubt the same: Elina Maropoulos, Emilia Marty or Ellen MacGregor. A company of gathered men begins to search Emilia Marty’s belongings. Among other things, they find papers dated 1603. Emilia Marty promises to tell the truth, but let everything be as in a real trial. Soon everyone will find out what her father Makropoulos came up with. His devilish means or for the good of mankind?
Epilogue
The same hotel room, but furnished like a courtroom. On the table is the Bible, a candle and a skull. Introduce a completely drunk chicly dressed Emilia. She explains that her name is Elina Makropoulos, she was born in Crete in 1585 and she is now 337 years old. She changed her names, because one person cannot live for so many years, but she always left the same initials. For three hundred years she loved one man and only gave him the remedy of Makropoulos. And now, feeling that she is getting old, she wants to get it back.
Her father made an anti-aging remedy for Emperor Rudolph, but he did not dare to drink it, and two men tried how it works on Elina. Many envy her, but she is tired of life, because human life is complex, and its normal length is sufficient. For 300 years, she recognized all human qualities and sees only that they are constantly repeated, she is tired, but she is afraid of death. And men argue what to do with the Makropulos remedy. There is a philosophical debate about whether immortality is necessary or not for man. Emilia returned and drew a line under the argument, saying that in such a life the soul dies. All together they refused to try the recipe on themselves and burned it on a candle.
"Means Makropoulos": reviews
Viewers and readers with knowledge of the matter understand the design of the play and are happy to watch the intense detective intrigue that unfolds before them. According to reviews, it is very interesting to understand the psychological nuances of the play.
“The Means of Makropoulos” Karel Chapek wrote as a warning to humanity and partly made a polemic with Bernard Shaw, who at the same time created “Back to Methuselah”.