From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Sep 24 15:20:24 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsflash.concordia.ca!pitt.edu!gatech!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Warren Dunn Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: R.U.R. by Karel Capek Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 23 Sep 1999 15:48:01 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Lines: 67 Sender: wex@nightshade.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: nightshade.media.mit.edu X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Posting-IP: ip120.ts17-2.mn.dialup.ottawa.cyberus.ca (209.195.66.120) X-Cyberus: NNTP Proxy version 1.1 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2462 R.U.R., by Karel Capek Review Copyright 1999 Warren Dunn I have to admit that I didn't really want to read this play. It was given to me by one of my teachers back in 1991, before I even started University. And so it's been sitting on my shelf ever since. But last year I read a bunch of Asimov's robot short stories. In his introduction, he said that the first ever mention of the word "robot" is in a play called R.U.R. My gaze went to my bookshelf, and my interest was piqued. But Asimov seemed to think it wasn't terribly well written, and so I hesitated. Karel Capek (pronounced CHOP-ek) was a Czechoslovakian authour. He wrote many plays and other works of fiction. The play first premiered in 1922, and has apparently been translated into English and put into many anthologies ever since. I know nothing, really, about plays, and even less about Czechoslovakia. However, as a play, and as a work of fiction, I thought R.U.R. was enjoyable. It takes place in four acts. The first one introduces us to Mr. Domain, who is in charge of Rossum's Universal Robots. He instantly falls in love with visiting Helena, a woman from the Humanitarian League, who thinks robots should be given souls and rights. The first act is basically exposition concerning the history and formation of the only robot factory in the world. The second and third acts take place five years later, when the robots revolt, and are annihilating humanity. The final act exposes us to some hope that humanity can rise again in the form of its creations, which are made in our image. The play is a satire, and describes what could happen if mechanization gets out of hand. No matter how noble the manufacturer's aims, for example, eliminating human labour, there are people who will turn those machines toward war. It has happened time and again. The characters are shallow, except for Helena, who is the feminine stereotype. Although she doesn't scream, she's the only emotional one. But, considering all we can get in a play is dialogue, it's the ideologies that are important. In the pre-Asimov robot world, the idea that we should be afraid of robots is a necessary one. Since Asimov created the Three Laws of Robotics, however, it seems only natural that such safeguards would be put in place. What decent human being wouldn't implement them? But, of course, the robots in our world are much more subtle. Bank machines, fully automated assembly-lines, all the way to the timers that make our ovens work when we're out for the day, the robots have taken over our lives. We can't live without them. But so far, we seem safe. As one character in R.U.R. puts it, people may be unemployed, but eventually there will be no more employment, and no need for the wages that employment produces. Unfortunately, some casualties are unavoidable. We don't have to like it, and we shouldn't like it. But that's what is called progress. %A Capek, Karel %A Translated by P. Selver %A Adapted to the English Stage by Nigel Playfair %E Edited by Harry Shefter %T R.U.R. %I Washington Square Press %C New York %D June 1973 %G ISBN 671-46605-4-075 %P 114 pp. %O Pocket Book Paperback, US$0.75 %O An Enriched Edition, with 24 pages of commentary about the author and the history of the play From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Oct 20 12:40:46 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Grumpy Stevens Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: RUR by Karel Capek Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 19 Oct 1999 10:59:35 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 101 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: justitia@erols.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2483 R. U. R., Karel Capek Review by Stevens R. Miller This review is in the public domain. All rights abandoned. Directed by John Spitzer Produced by Karen Mitchell Harry Domain - Scott Hicks Sulla - Karen Mitchell Marius - Kim Curtis Helena Glory - Julie Ann Myers Dr. Gall - Michael Miyazaki Mr. Alquist - Steve Wilhite Dr. Hallemeier - Michael Mack Radius - Ron Woods Helena - Sara M. Truog Primus - Joshua Barrett Fraudulent Productions does an engaging job of taking us back to the future in Capek's it-wasn't-cliche-when-he-wrote-it cautionary tale. "R. U. R." stands for "Rossum's Universal Robots," the last word of which comes from the Czech word for "slave." Rossum, now dead, has discovered a way to create artificial people. They have no souls and therefore aren't really human. In fact, they are better than human because they devote themselves entirely to their work, thus freeing humans to do something other than work. You can predict the outcome, which involves a revolt, genocide, and one of the first Last Men on Earth. What beguiles here is not the script; the play's the thing. This is a minimalist production of a play that premiered 80 years ago. Who knows what it was like then, or how fresh it might have been? Today, it is a vision of how, as Fred Pohl might have put it, the future used to be. Remember, Capek had never seen or heard of a computer. His robots are extensions, not of our inventions, but of ourselves. Fraudulent's version has them speaking in slightly modulated monotones, as all good robots do. They even dress in spandex and capped sleeves. Yet, as a live performance, they cross the barrier that encircled poor digital Jar-Jar Binks and even Robbie. They are truly the artificial people Capek had in mind. You can see them up close in the DC Arts Center's 50-seat theater. Are they human? Are they machines? How could anyone tell? The set greets you as you sit, almost, in it. There is a simple desk with a set of large buttons mounted in it. An old-style telephone, but with an antenna, rests there. Fritz Lang is watching from the wings... Let your eyes close and listen to the atmospheric music play before the show begins. You are there, again, in the sheet-steel future that we never achieved. As the story begins, you learn the history of the robots. You learn their promise and their threat. And their curse. They are simply machines who only look like humans. Helena Glory, daughter of the president, comes to teach them humanity. She is not the first, and Harry Domain, R. U. R.'s senior manager, openly laughs at her ambitions. But, starved himself for human contact, Domain falls in love with Glory, and marries her. She is also loved, to one degree or another, by the company's scientists. All, it seems, have spent a bit too much time with robots. Soon, the robots go beyond Glory's wishes, not only assuming individual identities, but seeing humankind as their mortal enemy. Revolt, then revenge, overtake humanity. Everyone dies before the end, save one engineer who is ordered to find the answer to the problem of the robots' limited life span, and lost secret of reproduction. The play starts slowly, with stilted performances by actors who seem not to know what emotions they are displaying. Perhaps the hinted roboticness they show is deliberate. But, by the second of four acts, the story becomes compelling and the performance is swept along by its momentum. Slight changes in set (arranged in near-darkness by actors who remain in-character as robots) help build a sense of evolution towards defeat. Emotions rise and become near, then real, hysteria. In the tiny DCAC theater, widened eyes and shrill voices do not seem like simple acting. There is a sense conveyed by these performers that something awful is happening just behind the audience, where they stare in terror. Towards the end, there are more robots on stage than humans. The last human is a bit crazed and so the robots are the ones who carry the story to its end. Two, in particular, show what will become of the Earth as it passes from human to robot hands. They may, but only may, have learned something of human values. Perhaps they will become humanity's inheritors. It is not a certain thing. But, the actors move their characters from robots to... something more, if not fully human, and close enough that a cold form of hope mounts the stage, just before the last lights-out. One moment, perhaps not in Capek's script, has two robots trying to laugh together. Their attempt is agonizingly strained, as sincerity competes with mockery in the perfectly unified sounds of two machines trying to act like people. This short scene, even without any dialog, evoked the essence of what "R. U. R." has to say, and showed a moment of rare talent. I was pleased to see this play, having known of it for the last 25 years. It is, perhaps, the first SF play and, if one can remember that its cliches were not yet known in 1920, it seems an inventive and thought-provoking entry in the genre. There are far too few SF stage plays, and this one, along with its cast, proves there should be more. %A Capek, Karel %T R. U. R. %I Fraudulent Productions %D 1999-09