The Makropoulos Secret" Is New Title for Dramatic Club Play--Translator Prefers It to "Thing", "Case", or "Affair"

The Dramatic Club made it known last night that its spring production will be entitled "The Makropoulos Secret" rather than "The Makropoulos Affair" as previously announced. This decision was reached after a series of conferences between the club's officers and the translator of the play, J. F. Holzinger ocC.

Holzinger is the authority for the statement that Karel Capek, the Czechoslovakian dramatist, used the word "Viec" in his title which, translated literally, means "thing". Realizing that "The Makropoulos Thing" was a meaningless title, Holzinger translated it "Affair". Theatrical reviews in London and New York papers have called it "Case". The Dramatic Club considered neither title was entirely adequate, and at Holzinger's suggestion "Secret" was substituted.

The play was translated for the Dramatic Club directly from the Czech by Holzinger with the assistance of Miss Arnsteinova, a Czechoslovakian girl sent by her government to Smith College. Never before has this play been translated directly into English. The only other English translation in existence is taken from a German translation of the original, and naturally it is imperfect.

Another mistake in the title has been in the spelling of "Makropoulos" which has generally been written with the termination "ulos" in theatrical circles. Investigation has, however, brought to light the fact that, being a Greek word, it requires the Greek ending "oulos".