Must-read play looks to a future in which all workers are automatons. They revolt when they acquire souls (i.e., when they gain the ability to hate) and the resulting catastrophe make for a powerful theatrical experience. One of the classics of twentieth-century theater, this brilliantly conceived and exquisitely executed play by Czech playwright Karel Capek (1890 1938) looks to a future in which all workers are automatons, or "robots" - a word this play made a permanent part of the language. The robots revolt when their manufacturing formula is changed to make them more irritable and to give them the human ability to hate, and the resulting catastrophe makes for a powerful and deeply moving theatrical experience. "It is murderous social satire, done in terms of the most hair-raising melodrama," wrote Alexander Woolcott in his 1922 review of the first U.S. performance of this universally admired play. Heywood Broun wrote, "Capek is potentially one of the great men in the modern drama. He has devised a scene at the end of the third act as awesome as anything we have ever seen in the theatre." This is the scene in which one of the last remaining humans, knowing himself and his species to be doomed, muses: "It was a great thing to be a man. There was something immense about it."
- ISBN:
- 9780486419268
- 9780486419268
- Category:
- Contemporary fiction
- Format:
- Paperback
- Publication Date:
- 20-08-2001
- Language:
- English
- Publisher:
- Dover Publications Inc.
- Country of origin:
- United States
- Pages:
- 64
- Dimensions (mm):
- 209x131x0mm
- Weight:
- 0kg
Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available
Great!
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Click on Save to My Library / Lists
Select the List you'd like to categorise as, or add your own
Here you can mark if you have read this book, reading it or want to read
Awesome! You added your first item into your Library
Great! The fun begins.
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Click on My Library / My Lists and I will take you there
Reviews
Be the first to review R.U.R..
Share This Book: