A selection from the opening of _R.U.R._ will show the
gist of Capek's
intention with this play. Capek was no mere
spinner of
space operas, but many of his works had deep philosophical
roots. He
cared about truth and justice, and these values were informed
by his readings
of philosophers, especially the then-modern philosopher
Bergson's still-controversial questions about the nature of time
as we experience
it versus time as a physics process inspired Capek
to use a
refractive approach in his narration of tales. Not only time
was able
to be seen from different angles but the entire scene of human
action. Capek
didn't accept that one character could see the truth
and thus
communicate it to the reader. In some novels and stories,
Capek used
the same event told by different narrators, to show what
he considered
to be the truth: that which lay between all the
participants'
versions of the tale. One such Capek novel was _Meteor_,
wherein six
eyewitnesses and acquaintances of the victim describe
the same
plane crash in hopes of piecing together the identity of the
plane's survivor.
Whose truth do we get in such a play as _R.U.R._?
Who were those robots and what did they have to say
to the world of 1920?
Click here for the excerpt from _R.U.R._:
From where did the inspiration come, then? Click here to see
what Capek
himself said prompted his robot play:
What did critics in the early 1920s make of such an odd play
on Broadway
and in book form?
See a few selected contemporary critics, here:
Staging a Capek play is always a challenge, due to some of the
demands he
made on actors. _R.U.R._ was an expressionist play and
that is a
source of perennial mayhem for directors. How stiff
should the
Robots be? Here are some comments about the adventure
of producing
Capek onstage:
I know that this would have pleased ol' Karel. There is now a comprehensive web site showing people's own handmade androids. You will recall after reading our RUR excerpt that the original robots were really androids. Now people are tinkering them together and showing home photos.