page_title: R.U.R.
section_title: Production history
hierarchical_section_title: R.U.R. / Production history
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the first edition of R.U.R. by Karel Čapek. Deutsch: Cover der tschechischen Erstausgabe des Schauspiels R.U.R. (W.U.R.) von Karel Čapek.
context_page_description: R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. R.U.R. stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti. The English phrase "Rossum's Universal Robots" has been used as a subtitle. It premiered on 25 January 1921 and introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole.
  R.U.R. quickly became influential after its publication. By 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages.
  The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people, called roboti, from synthetic organic matter. They are living creatures of artificial flesh and blood rather than machinery. They may be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans at first, but a robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race. Čapek later took a different approach to the same theme in War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.
  R.U.R. was successful in its time in Europe and North America.
context_section_description: The work was published in Prague by Aventinum in 1920 and premiered at the city's National Theatre on 25 January 1921. It was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver and adapted for the English stage by Nigel Playfair in 1923.  Selver's translation abridged the play and eliminated a character, a robot named "Damon". In April 1923 Basil Dean produced R.U.R. for the Reandean Company at St Martin's Theatre, London.
  The American première was at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien played robots in their Broadway debuts.
  It also played in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923. In the late 1930s, the play was staged in the U.S. by the Federal Theatre Project's Marionette Theatre in New York.
  In 1989, a new, unabridged translation by Claudia Novack-Jones restored the elements of the play eliminated by Selver. Another unabridged translation was produced by Peter Majer and Cathy Porter for Methuen Drama in 1999.
caption: Cover of the first edition of the play designed by Josef Čapek, Aventinum, Prague, 1920.
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