At one hundred years old R.U.R. has had a long history on stage and screen. The script was first published in its author’s native Czech in 1920 and premiered the following year in Hradec Králové. It debuted in the United States in 1922 (that production was actor Spencer Tracey’s first Broadway role) in an English translation by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair. (For our production, we merged that translation with a Google Translate-assisted version of Čapek’s original.) During the Great Depression the show enjoyed popularity as part of the repertoire of various regional units of the Federal Theatre Project, including Cleveland, Ohio, and Jacksonville, Florida, publicity material from which is shown below. The FTP’s Marionette Theatre, under the direction of puppeteer Remo Bufano, was slated to produce a version of the play, but production was stopped before its scheduled opening in November 1937 in a move that led to Bufano’s resignation from his post.[1]
As with many greats of the genre it helped to create, R.U.R. was swiftly adapted to other media. On February 11, 1938, just two years after its inception, the BBC broadcast a version of the play that some scholars flag as the first science fiction television program.[2] More recently the show made history again with a 2015 production at the Gallery of the National Technical Library in Prague featuring a cast entirely composed of robots constructed from LEGO Mindstorms programming kits.
[1] “Bufano Quits WPA Unit: Head of Marionette Group Scores ‘Obstructive Policies.’” The New York Times 15 November 1937. p.8.
[2] Lewis, Danny. “78 Years Ago Today, BBC Aired the First Science Fiction Television Program.” SmithsonianMag.com. 11 February 2016.
