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R.U.R.
by Karel Capek
Directed by Scott Alan Evans
April 30 to May 2, 2005
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street, NYC
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| SYNOPSIS |
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A mechanized world turns on its human creators. Eerily relevant in our technologically advanced age, this futuristic drama brought the word ?robot? into the world lexicon. |
| CAST/CREW |
Victor Slezak
Harry Domin
Ashley West
Sulla, a Robotress
Chris Kipiniak
Marius, a Robot
Kelly Hutchinson
Helena Glory
Gregory Salata
Dr. Hallemeier
Scott Schafer
Consul Busman
Rob Breckenridge
Radius, a Robot
Kelly Hutchinson
Helena, a Robotress
Josh Renfree
Primus, a Robot
Aleks Ozolins
French Horn
Jorge Arroyo
Lighting Designer
Meredith Moseley
Costume Designer
Dawn Dunlop
Production Stage Manager
Carol Rosegg
Production Photographer
Matthew Kreiner Assistant Director |
| PRESS |
New Jersey.Com
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Playbill.com
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Show Business
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Wolf Entertainm Guide
First staged in 1921, Czech author Karel Capek?s futuristic play ?R.U.R.,? which stands for Rossum?s... [ read more]
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| DRAMATURGY |
Premiered in The National Theatre of Prague, Czechoslovakia: January 25, 1921
NY Premiere: Garrick Theatre, Oct. 9, 1922---unknown (368 performances)
The last Broadway revival was: December 3, 1942 to December 5, 1942 (63
years since last major production in NYC)
Czech novelist, short-story writer, political thinker, ardent pacifist, playwright and teacher, Dr. Karel Capek (pronounced CHOP-ik) was born at Male Svatonovice in Bohemia. A man of many talents, his greatest recognition came from his work as a playwright. He is best known for his play R.U.R. which, when it was first produced in 1921, brought him international recognition. This work about the extinction of the human race by artificial men ? Rossum?s Universal Robots ? became one of the most widely performed plays of the century. Though clearly of the genre, it pre-dates the term ?science fiction,? and is credited with adding the word ?robot? to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Karel was born to Antonin Capek and Boena Capkova on January 9, 1890. His father was a busy country doctor, educated and literate with a strong Czech patriotic consciousness. His mother was fragile and highly sensitive ? Capek characterizes her as the kind of mother who often gives rise to creative children. Karel had two older siblings, a brother, Josef and a sister, Helena. The brothers maintained a personal closeness throughout their lives, and early in their career collaborated on prose works and plays. Josef was also to garner considerable recognition as a painter and set designer.
In 1909, Capek entered Charles University in Prague and began studying philosophy. He continued his studies in Berlin and Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1915 for a thesis on ?Objective Methods in Aesthetics, with Reference to Creative Art.?
Capek got his first job with a newspaper in 1917 and began a life-long association with journalism. While many authors balk at having to support their artistic work with their work as journalists, Capek used it to his artistic advantage: his articles and essays have a high literary polish, while his fiction and plays talk to the reader with the direct simplicity of a popular columnist.
In much of his creative and journalistic writings, he showed an abhorrence for Nazism and racism as well as concern about the crisis of democracy in Europe (some scholars believe this political stance, and the wariness of the Swedish Academy to offend Nazi Germany, cost him the Nobel Prize in 1936). Philosophically as well as politically, Capek was a man of the center, but not in the sense used by hostile critics. The center he was aiming for was not a lukewarm middle ground between extremes. It was a radical center, radical in the original sense of the word: at the root of things. Capek rejected collectivism of any type, but was just as opposed to selfish individualism. He was a passionate democrat and a pluralist. He was often called a relativist because he disliked single vision and preferred to look at everything from many sides (his novel trilogy, Hordubal (1934), Povetron (1934) and Obycejnyivot (1934), demonstrates this by telling the same story from three different point of views, centering around problems of truth and reality). Yet Capek did not believe that truth is relative nor that everyone has his or her own truth. Capek is also often described as a pragmatist. But in his belief in the reality of objective truth, he departed from both relativism and from pragmatist thought.
The early 1920?s were a highly productive period for Capek, especially as a dramatist. His first play, The Outlaw, produced in 1920, did not arouse much attention. But it was followed the next year by R.U.R., which proved to be a phenomenal success. 1923 marked the premiere of From the Life of the Insects (also known as The Life of the Insects and The Insect Play), a witty morality play Capek wrote in collaboration with his brother. Karel and Josef collaborated on ten plays over 20 years. Together, the brothers also began an avant-garde circle, ?The Pragmatists,? a weekly salon of artists, writers, and intellectuals, which met at Karel?s suburban villa every Friday night (and which often included Czech President Tomas Masaryk).
Capek was named director of the Prague Municipal Theatre in 1921, a post he was to hold for several years, and also served as stage director and dramaturge of the Vinohrady Theatre in Prague. In Capek?s plays, which tended towards the philosophical, he revealed himself to be an astute and often humorous social and political commentator. His interests did not lie in portraying everyday life. And though he had a lively interest in drama and won much acclaim as a playwright and director, his talent was basically narrative rather than dramatic. In the later part of this career, he concentrated almost exclusively on his prose works.
Karel was a friend and biographer of the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic, Tomas Masaryk and was a leader of the reaction against the ultra-national tendencies of the pre-War school of Czech authors. He fully shared Masaryk?s humanitarianism and worked with him to unify the country. He paid a tribute to the president by recording Masaryk?s political ideas in Hovory?s T.G. Masarykem, published in three volumes between 1928 and 1935. Besides these, Capek also published volumes of stories and essays he had amassed over two decades. These included among others, Money (1929), Tales From Two Pockets (1932), Fairy Tales (1933), and The Stolen Cactus (1937).
Capek passed away in Prague on December 25, 1938. The diagnosis was double pneumonia. He was only forty-eight years old. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, his works were blacklisted by the Nazis. During the Communist reign, much of his works were suppressed. Today Capek?s resting place can be found at the cemetery of Visehrad. It is the Czecho-Slovak Pantheon where other representatives of Czech culture have been put to rest.
R.U.R.
Capek explained that in R.U.R. he tried to show that everyone was right. The play was written in 1920 and staged in 1921 at the National Theatre of Prague, in a time when a world war had just been fought, old political institutions were being toppled, and new social reforms were rising. The inspiration for the play included the present situation of the world, but mostly came from his disturbance by mechanization of labor. In the author?s own words, ?Industrialism causes each?to lose his individuality.? He saw mechanization, namely robots and machinery as a consequent destruction of the value of the human individual. Although the play was written in the early 1900s, we think it remains greatly relevant today. In fact, many of the same ethical issues raised in R.U.R. can be drawn to the current issues surrounding cloning. R.U.R. debuted on Broadway in October 1922, in a production by the Theatre Guild. It was revived in December 1942. At its New York premiere, The New York Evening Post called the play ?sensational.? The New York Times wrote: ?In the intelligence of its writing, the novelty of its action and the provocative nature of its mood, ?R.U.R.? sustains the high traditions of the Theatre Guild.?
TACT
April/May 2005
?ROBOT?
Word History: In 1921, the Czech author Karel Capek produced his best known work, the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which featured machines created to simulate human beings. Some references state that term "robot" was derived from the Czech word robota, meaning "work", while others propose that robota actually means "forced workers" or "slaves," from rab, ?slave.? The Slavic root behind robota is orb-, from the Indo-European root *orbh-, referring to separation from one's group or passing out of one sphere of ownership into another. This seems to be the sense that binds together its somewhat diverse group of derivatives, which includes Greek orphanos, ?orphan,? Latin orbus, ?orphaned,? and German Erbe, ?inheritance.? This latter view would certainly fit the point that Capek was trying to make, because his robots eventually rebelled against their creators, ran amok, and tried to wipe out the human race.
However, as is usually the case with words, the truth of the matter is a little more convoluted. In the days when Czechoslovakia was a feudal society, robota referred to the two or three days of the week that peasants were obliged to leave their own fields to work without remuneration on the lands of noblemen. For a long time after the feudal system had passed away, robota continued to be used to describe work that one wasn't exactly doing voluntarily or for fun, while today's younger Czechs and Slovaks tend to use robota to refer to work that's boring or uninteresting. |
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