The Makropulos Thing: 2 CDs

The famous play The Makropulos Sentence, written by Karel Čapek, with the theme of longevity, was first performed on the stage of the Vinohrady Municipal Theatre in 1922.

Genre-wise, it is a comedy in three acts with a transformation, albeit a very bitter comedy in the end. The audio version is almost faithful to the original text, but it is enriched with sound devices typical of radio. There is a clear point in the production: "To say that one day in the future there will be no sickness, no poverty, no unclean toil is certainly optimism; but to say that this present life of sickness, misery and toil is not so permanently bad and damned, and has something of immense value, is - what is it? Pessimism? I don't think so."

Radio play from 1975 directed by Jiří Horčička, released on CD by Jazzmusic.