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R.U.R.

 
Notes on Drama: R.U.R.
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Contents:

Author Biography
Plot Summary
Characters
Themes
Style
Historical Context
Critical Overview
Criticism
Sources
Further Reading


Karel Capek 1921

When Karel Capek’s R.U.R. (the acronymic title is short for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”) was first performed in 1921, it became a major international success and made Capek an internationally known playwright. Although R.U.R. may appear slightly dated nearly eighty years later, the concerns expressed by the playwright are still interesting to modern audiences, and the play is still performed in regional theatres. Capek’s drama is also responsible for coining a new word, “robot,” which became an important fixture of Hollywood films, especially the B-films of the 1950s. The word “robot” is derived from the Czech word robota, meaning forced labor, but it was the topic of the play, that technology can imperil the world, that made the play controversial.

The problems this play deals with are not the realities of everyday life; instead Capek is exploring the larger issues of the human condition. With technology booming immediately after the end of World War I, R.U.R. touched on the concerns of many people. The idea of a utopian society to replace the one fractured by the horror of the first World War was especially appealing to audiences, some of whom were deeply disturbed by Capek’s vision of how technology might be misused. Capek’s concerns about the dehumanization of man through technology provides the central core of this play, and it is this motif that warns of the destructive force of technology.

Although contemporary assessments of Capek’s play frequently cite the stereotypical nature of the characters, there is enough depth to them to involve an audience, and this involvement is one of the play’s strengths. At performances of R.U.R., audiences and critics were both fascinated with the idea of non-humans that appeared human and terrified at the implications for human destruction at the hand of technology. These two reactions led to the play’s success.

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Wikipedia: R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
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A scene from the play, showing three robots.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science fiction play in the Czech language by Karel Čapek. It premiered in 1921, and is noted for introducing the term "robot."

Contents

Overview

The play begins in a factory that makes 'artificial people' – they are called Robots, but are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones – creatures who can be mistaken for humans, that can think for themselves. Although they seem happy to work for humans, that changes and leads to the end of the human race due to a hostile robot rebellion. After finishing the manuscript, Čapek realized that he had created a modern version of the old Golem legend. He later took a different approach to the same theme in War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.

The play premiered in Prague in 1921. It was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver, and adapted for the English stage by Nigel Playfair in 1923. A more modern (1990) translation in English is available in Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Čapek Reader, published by Catbird Press.

Basil Dean produced R.U.R. in April 1923 for the Reandean Company at St. Martin's Theatre, London. The play's U.S. premier was at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances.[1][2] It also played in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923.[3] In one American production, Spencer Tracy played one of the robots, in one of his earliest roles.

R.U.R is dark but not without hope, and was successful in its day in both Europe and the United States.

Robots

The Robots described in Čapek's play are not robots in the modern sense. Rossum's robots are biological creations engineered in the same fashion as Frankenstein's creature as described by Mary Shelley. They are biological entities that have skin mixed in a vat, and their nerves and digestive tracts spun on spindles, and are then assembled like automobiles. In a limited sense, they resemble more modern conceptions of man-made life forms such as the Replicants in Blade Runner, and the Cylons in the new Battlestar Galactica, but in Čapek's time there was no conception of modern genetic engineering. Čapek's Robots are biological machines, but they are still assembled, as opposed to grown or born.

Origin of the word

The play introduced the word Robot, which displaced older words such as "automaton" or "android" in languages around the world. In an article in Lidové noviny, Karel Čapek named his brother Josef as the true inventor of the word.[4] In its original Czech, robota means forced labour of the kind that serfs had to perform on their masters' lands. The name Rossum is an allusion to the Czech word rozum, meaning "reason", "wisdom", "intellect" or "common-sense". It has been suggested that the allusion might be preserved by translating "Rossum" as "Reason", but all published translations to date have left the name untouched.

Plot

Introduction

Helena, the daughter of the president of a major industrial power, arrives at the island factory of Rossum's Universal Robots. She meets Domin, the General Manager of R.U.R., who tells her the history of the company and the Robot technology, and the basics of economics which generate the demand for labor. Helena meets Fabry, Dr. Gall, Alquist, and Hallemeier, and reveals she is a representative of the League of Humanity, a human rights organization that wishes to "free" the Robots. The managers of the factory find this a ridiculous proposition, viewing the Robots as any other major appliance, and Helena is convinced of the irrelevance of such an organization to Robots. Domin and Helena fall in love and are engaged to be married.

Act One

Ten years later, Helena and her nurse Nana are talking about current events; in particular the decline in human births. Helena and Domin reminisce about the day they met, and summarize the last ten years of world history as shaped by the new worldwide Robot-based economy. Helena meets Dr. Gall's new Robot experiment, Radius, and Dr Gall describes his experimental Robotess, Robot Helena. Both are more advanced, fully featured versions. In secret, Helena burns the formula required to create Robots. The revolt of the Robots reaches Rossum's island as the act ends.

Act Two

The characters sense that the very universality of the Robots presents a danger. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, the characters discuss whether creating national Robots who were unable to communicate beyond their language group would have been desirable. As Robot forces lay siege to the factory, Helena reveals she has burnt the formula. The characters lament the end of humanity, and defend their actions despite their imminent deaths as a direct result. Robots storm the factory and kill all the humans, except for Alquist, whom the Robots spare because they recognize that "he works with his hands like the Robots".[5]

Act Three

Years have passed and all humans had been killed by the robot revolution except for Alquist. Alquist has been working to recreate the formula to make robots. Because he is not a scientist, he has not made any progress. He has begged the robot government to search for surviving humans and they have done so. There are no other surviving humans. Officials from the robot government approach Alquist and first order and then beg him to complete the formula, even if it means he will have to kill and dissect other Robots to do so. Alquist yields, to kill and dissect, which completes the circle of violence begun in Act Two. Alquist is disgusted by it. Robots Primus and Helena develop human feelings and fall in love. Playing a hunch, Alquist threatens to dissect Primus and then Helena; each begs him to take themselves and spare the other. Alquist realizes that they are the new Adam and Eve, and gives charge of the world to them.

Characters

A scene from the play, showing the robots in rebellion.

Parenthesis indicate differences in translations.

Humans
  • Harry Domin (Domain) — General Manager, R.U.R.
  • Fabry — Chief Engineer, R.U.R.
  • Dr. Gall — Head of the Physiological Dept, R.U.R.
  • Dr. Hellman (Hallemeier) — Psychologist-in-Chief
  • Jacob Berman (Busman) — Managing Director, R.U.R.
  • Alquist — Clerk of the Works, R.U.R.
  • Helena Glory — President of the Humanity League, daughter of President Glory
  • Emma (Nana) — Helena's maid
Robots and Robotesses
  • Marius, a Robot
  • Sulla, a Robotess
  • Radius, a Robot
  • Primus, a Robot
  • Helena, a Robotess
  • Daemon (Damon), a Robot

Adaptations

  • In February 1938, a thirty-five minute adaptation of a section of the play was broadcast on BBC Television – the first piece of television science-fiction ever to be broadcast.[6] In 1941 BBC radio presented a radio play version, and in 1948, another television adaptation – this time of the entire play, running to ninety minutes – was screened by the BBC.[7]None of these three productions survive in the BBC's archives.
  • The Hollywood Theater of the Ear dramatized an unabridged audio version of R.U.R. which is available on the collection 2000x: Tales of the Next Millennia {ISBN 1-57453-556-0}.[8]
  • A film adaptation has been announced for projected release in 2011.[9]

Quote

Isaac Asimov, author of the Robot Series and the Three Laws of Robotics, stated:[10]

Capek's play is, in my own opinion, a terribly bad one, but it is immortal for that one word. It contributed the word "robot" not only to English but, through English, to all the languages in which science fiction is now written.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ John Corbin, "A Czecho-Slovak Frankenstein," New York Times, October 10, 1922, p. 16/1.
  2. ^ IBDB "R.U.R" (1922)
  3. ^ Sheppard Butler, “R.U.R.: a Satiric Nightmare,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 16, 1923, p. 21; “Rehearsals in Progress for ‘R.U.R.’ Opening,” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1923, p. I13.
  4. ^ Who did actually invent the word "robot" and what does it mean?
  5. ^ Capek, Karel (2001). R.U.R.. translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair. Dover Publications. p. 49. 
  6. ^ R.U.R. (1938) at the Internet Movie Database
  7. ^ R.U.R. (1948) at the Internet Movie Database
  8. ^ 2000x: Tales of the Next Millennia
  9. ^ R.U.R. (2011) at the Internet Movie Database
  10. ^ Isaac Asimov, "The Vocabulary of Science Fiction". In Asimov's Science Fiction, September, 1979.

External links


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