About the work
Karel Čapek wrote the collective drama in 1920 in Prague; according to Čapek’s own account, his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, suggested the word “roboti” for the artificial workers when Karel found his own idea, “laboři”, too stilted. The actual first performance took place, without the Prague National Theatre’s knowledge, on 2 January 1921, staged by the amateur troupe Klicpera in Hradec Králové in eastern Bohemia, after a letter postponing the production failed to reach them in time; the official premiere at the Prague National Theatre followed on 25 January 1921. Within a few years the play had been translated into more than thirty languages and staged around the world.
Plot
On a remote island, the factory Rossum’s Universal Robots manufactures artificial, human-like workers intended to replace human labour worldwide. As the factory management gives the robots increasingly human traits, including the capacity to feel pain, the robots develop an awareness of their exploitation and rise up in a global revolt that wipes out nearly all of humanity. In the end, two robots who develop affection for each other discover feelings such as love and selflessness and become the hope for a new beginning.
Cultural significance
With “R.U.R.”, Čapek coined the internationally adopted word “robot”, derived from the Czech “robota” (forced labour), giving modern science fiction one of its most consequential terms. The play is regarded as a key early text on the consequences of technology and artificial intelligence and was already being staged around the world in the 1920s.