30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #14 "R.U.R." by Karel Čapek

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #14

R.U.R. by Karel Čapek

Before I begin, I have a confession to make:  today should not have been the first day I read this play. R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) was assigned as part of a class I took while a lad at Bennington, a class called "40 Plays" (the name of the class says it all--- we read forty plays) taught by my playwriting professor Gladden Schrock. This was the sole play I did not read for the class, and I missed the class when it was discussed. Why?  I can't remember specifically, but it was probably at a point during the semester when I was feeling overwhelmed by so many other projects, and this had to give. I am not someone who often missed required reading--- I can count only three reading assignments in my memory throughout my schooling--- because I actually really like to read and to learn. Still, I missed out on R.U.R. in that class (sorry, Gladden, if you are reading this), and, goody two-shoes that I am, always felt a small twinge of guilt whenever I looked at the script in the intervening years. 

But today I finally made good. 

Karel Čapek is sometimes called "the father of Czechoslovakian theater" and is best known in the English speaking world for R.U.R. and The World We Live In (also known as The Insect Play). He had a wide interest in various subjects, and once suggested that his ambition was to write about a hundred books and experiment with all different types of literature, though he fell short of this aim. Not for lack of talent or being prolific, however. 

R.U.R.is a satire of sorts, according to scholar Harry Shefter, a political, economic and social satire. Čapek had sincere concerns about technological advances leading to the dehumanization of our species, the major them of this play, and I can't help but think he might be horrified at our daily life today. He was well regarded in the literary community, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times (though he never won). All this before he passed away at the age of 48, leaving an impressive legacy in such a relatively short life. 

R.U.R. was written in 1920 and first performed in 1921, and, yes, it largely introduced the term "robot" to the English language, and, in many ways, to science fiction as a whole. While the robots in the play may not seem like the mechanical/android types we have become accustomed to thinking of, they are all made to look somewhat similarly. These robots have heartbeats however, almost something between a cyborg, Frankenstein's monster, and Vicky from the absolutely bizarre 1980s sitcom Small Wonder. Again, we are looking at themes that have since become tropes in science fiction:  we have the factory producing robots run by Domain, a dominant fellow who finishes other people's sentences, who believes in wiping out labor by creating these robots. We have the scientists like Dr. Gall, who is working to find the balance to make these robots human enough to do the labor required, and to give them enough human traits, like feeling pain, so that they might protect themselves, minimizing damage and keeping things efficient and cost effective. 

A young woman named Helena arrives at the factory on behalf of something she calls the Humanity League (it is mentioned a few times but quickly dropped) on behalf of the rights of robots. This is all listened to with a kind of bemusement by the "smart men", like Domain and Dr. Gall, as well as engineer Fabry, psychologist Dr. Helman (who really doesn't seem to be much of a psychologist at all), Berman the businessman and Alquist, the only actual laborer it seems. They all condescend to Helena, and, oddly all fall in love with her, Act One ending with Domain giving her a few minutes to accept her marriage proposal twenty minutes after meeting her. Oddly, she does. 

The rest of the play deals with---- spoiler alert, though it is fairly obvious to anyone paying attention--- the aftermath of opening up the technological Pandora's box and not being able to close it again, leading to a Robot Revolt, and an epilogue with one surviving human watching a robot "Adam and Eve" learn to love, which, of course, further explores the theme of what it truly means to be human.  

I enjoyed reading this play, and was quite impressed by the satire, and impressed with  Čapek and his foresight and ideas. I am also always a fan when something like science fiction is presented on stage, as I feel it is a genre that isn't really explored much theatrically, and I think that's kind of a shame. 

I do wish writers from the 1920s who imagine the world of the future, could possibly imagine it with a woman who has agency for herself. Helena starts off strong, but in the first act alone winds up apologizing for her agency, calling herself a "silly girl" more than once. Later in the play, she is constantly being condescended and lied to, under the idea that it is for her own good and she shouldn't worry herself. Now, I have read some criticism of the play that this was intentional and part of the satire, and may very well be, with  Čapek playing on the stereotype of women being demure. And, in all fairness, Helena does in fact take initiative to convince Dr. Gall to try to give robots a soul, and she also takes matters into her own hands in a pivotal moment. I should also mention, the only other (human) female character, Emma the maid, is full of energy and doesn't take crap from anyone.

My only other major complaint is that some of the dialogue becomes very laughable in key moments, though that could very well be the effort of translation, and may play better on the stage than on the page. 

And with that, at long last, I can say that I have truly finished my "40 Plays" course load. Talk about a weight being lifted!