Public-domain ebook
by Karel Čapek
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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #59112.
R.U.R. is a three‑act melodrama that begins in the bustling central office of Rossum’s Universal Robots, an island factory that mass‑produces soulless, tireless workers. The opening scene introduces the efficient General Manager Harry Domin, his typist Sulla, and a newly arrived visitor, Helena Glory, daughter of the Humanitarian League’s president. Their dialogue swiftly establishes the premise: a secret formula has yielded countless artificial people, divided into unskilled and skilled grades, and the play’s early tension revolves around Helena’s demand to see the factory and Domin’s eager, almost flirtatious, attempts to win her trust. The stage directions and character notes emphasize the mechanical precision of the robots, contrasted with the few who display a hint of humanity, setting the stage for the later revolt and philosophical stakes that unfold over a decade.
Written in the early twentieth‑century Czech tradition, the English translation preserves Capek’s brisk, dialogue‑driven style and his blend of scientific speculation with theatrical spectacle. The language is formal yet accessible, with a rhythm that mirrors the industrial setting while allowing moments of wit and irony. Readers who enjoy speculative drama, early science‑fiction, or works that interrogate the relationship between technology and humanity will find this play engaging, especially those interested in the origins of the word “robot” and its cultural ramifications.
The opening · free to read
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that R. U. R. is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion pictures, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. In its present form the play is dedicated to the reading public only.
R. U. R. may be given stage presentation by amateurs upon payment of a royalty of Thirty-five Dollars for the first performance, and Twenty-five Dollars for each additional performance, payable one week before the date when the play is given, to Samuel French, Inc., at 45 West 25th Street, New York, N. Y. 10010, or at 7623 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, Calif. 90046, or to Samuel French (Canada), Ltd., 80 Richmond Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 1P1.
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The play is laid on an island somewhere on our planet, and on this island is the central office of the factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots. “Robot” is a Czech word meaning “worker.” When the play opens, a few decades beyond the present day, the factory had turned out already, following a secret formula, hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of manufactured workmen, living automats, without souls, desires or feelings. They are high-powered laborers, good for nothing but work. There are two grades, the unskilled and the skilled, and especially trained workmen are furnished on request.
When Helena Glory, president of the Humanitarian League, comes to ascertain what can be done to improve the condition of those overspecialized creatures, Harry Domin, the general manager of the factory, captures her heart and hand in the speediest courting on record in our theatre. The last two acts take place ten years later. Due to the desire of Helena to have the Robots more like human beings, Dr. Gall, the head of the physiological and experimental departments, has secretly changed the formula, and while he has partially humanized only a few hundreds, there are enough to make ringleaders, and a world revolt of robots is under way. This revolution is easily accomplished, as robots have long since been used when needed as soldiers and the robots far outnumber human beings.
The rest of the play is magnificent melodrama, superbly portrayed, with the handful of human beings at bay while the unseen myriads of their own robots close in on them. The final scene is like Dunsany on a mammoth scale.
Then comes the epilogue, in which Alquist, the company’s builder, is not only the only human being on the island, but also the only one left on earth. The robots have destroyed the rest of mankind. They spared his life because he was a worker. And he is spending his days unceasingly endeavoring to discover and reconstruct the lost formula. The robots are doomed. They saved the wrong man. They should have spared the company’s physicist. The robots know that their bodies will wear out in time and there will be no new multitudes of robots to replace them. But Alquist discovers two humanized robots, a young man and young woman, who have a bit of Adam and Eve in them, and the audience perceives that mankind is about to start afresh. Nature has won out, after all.
The cast of the Theatre Guild Production as originally presented at the Garrick Theatre, New York:
R. U. R.
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