R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays) - Softcover

Karel Capek

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486419266 ISBN 13: 9780486419268

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2001

Synopsis

One of the classics of twentieth-century theater, this brilliantly conceived and exquisitely executed play by Czech playwright Karel Čapek (1890–1938) looks to a future in which all workers are automatons, or "robots" — a word this play made a permanent part of the language. The robots revolt when their manufacturing formula is changed to make them more irritable and to give them the human ability to hate, and the resulting catastrophe makes for a powerful and deeply moving theatrical experience.
"It is murderous social satire, done in terms of the most hair-raising melodrama," wrote Alexander Woolcott in his 1922 review of the first U.S. performance of this universally admired play. Heywood Broun wrote, "Čapek is potentially one of the great men in the modern drama. He has devised a scene at the end of the third act as awesome as anything we have ever seen in the theatre." This is the scene in which one of the last remaining humans, knowing himself and his species to be doomed, muses: "It was a great thing to be a man. There was something immense about it."

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Czech

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0486419266
• ISBN 13: 9780486419268
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64