R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)

You probably know that Karel Čapek’s 1920 Czech play R.U.R. gave the world the word “robot.” It’s what the second “R” stands for — the long version of the title is “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” And for nearly a hundred years, the play has been considered a classic, translated into every major language on the face of the planet.

I set out to adapt R.U.R. because it seemed to me a pity there have been so few modern productions of this history-making play. It seemed to me that theatres of today have avoided the original work due to its expressionist style, to characters that seem to us now to be “two-dimensional.” And many producers and directors are further distanced from the work by the awkwardly-formal language of the most literal English translations.

What if, I wondered, there was an adaptation of Čapek’s masterpiece that brought the play’s characters and language into a modern vernacular?

So I wrote one. Working from the strict-English translations and from the original Czech (yes, I learned enough Czech to be able to read it …it’s all gone from my mind now, but I did it), I tried to be as faithful as possible to Karel Čapek’s intentions while updating the details of the ethical issues raised. And above all, I’ve approached the story as a more realistic piece of science fiction with more fully-rounded characters.

This new adaptation was first produced at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, with a rotating set, video projections, and a score of original electronic music. The production was enthusiastically praised by critics and audience alike. Much of the success of the first production was due to the original music and sound effects by Dr. Michael Angell, the scenery and lighting designed by Kelly Allison, and the costumes designed by Kimberly Schnormeier.

It was long … I admit it! That script was just too darn long. So back I went to the original text and to my own drafts and I trimmed it to the bone. And, to my delight, I saw in subsequent productions of the script that it works so much better in its leaner-and-meaner form. The script races along now, hurtling toward its inevitable (and surprising!) conclusion.

This was the script that was circulating when Resonance Ensemble approached me about producing the show off-Broadway in 2012. Naturally I was elated! And the director was the great Valentina Fratti, with whose daily guidance and advice I reworked parts of the script even more. So you can imagine how sleek-and-sharp the script is now!

The off-Broadway production received this recommendation from one of the most famous columnists ever:

“Have I got a treat for you…”
“…reimagined and restructured for our times by Lee Eric Shackleford…the play remains faithful to Čapek’s masterpiece…It’s excellent.”

— Liz Smith

HELENA First I have one more question for you, if you don’t mind. DOMIN Good — I have one for you too. HELENA I am almost afraid to ask this, but something about the way Hallemeier spoke to Sulla just now … does the human appearance of the G2 robots extend to — well — DOMIN Yes, they have working sex organs. HELENA And the females are all as attractive as Sulla, I imagine. Whose idea was that? DOMIN I honestly don’t remember, but I doubt any of us objected. HELENA Have you considered that perhaps you’ve all been on this island too long? DOMIN All the jokes that can be made about this have already been made. Believe me. And you’re not thinking this out all the way. Remember all the dangerous and degrading professions we’ve already done away with by replacing human workers with robots. Coal mining. Firefighting. Sewer maintenance! Right? Robots with lifelike sexual response could mean — well, what if no human being was ever again tempted — or forced — to sell their bodies, to rent themselves out for the sake of somebody’s else’s … it’s what the R.U.R mission has always been and will always be: to build a world in which no human being is ever again treated as a — a thing, an object! HELENA And will you sell them to the armies of the world? I’m sure they would be the perfect soldiers — DOMIN No — HELENA — intelligent, strong, and blindly obedient? DOMIN No. That we will not do. We’ll call them “Universal” robots, but there will in fact be one thing they will not do. They will not be allowed to kill. They’ll serve us, they’ll care for our sick, they’ll do our most dangerous jobs for us … but they will never hurt us. Any of us. And who knows? Maybe as the years go by, we’ll learn from them ….

Think you'd like to read more? I'll be happy to send you a script!

In 2018 I was invited to the prestigious drama school DAMU in Prague — birthplace of Karel Čapek and of R.U.R. … to talk about the concept of “artificial life,” the history of the play, and about my adaptation in particular. Later I combined an audio recording of that lecture with the images from my slideshow, and the resulting video is something you may enjoy! So here it is.

“Act Like a Robot”. from leeshack on Vimeo.