Subject: Review: R.U.R. by Karel Capek

From: Warren Dunn <[email-masked]>
Date: 23 Sep 1999 15:48:01 -0400

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