R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
adapted by Lee Shackleford
Index / About R.U.R. and Čapek / Previous Productions
Shackleford Adaptation / Get the script /
Images from a few of the many productions of this play since 1920...
Scenic design for the Prague 1920 production.
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The robot rebellion!
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Sketch from a 1922 New York Evening Journal,
showing a scene from the Theatre Guild's New York production.
Surely the proportions are somewhat exaggerated! |
Photograph from the Theatre Guild's New York production, proving the robots in
that production were not played by giants, as the Evening Journal cartoon suggested. |
The Robot Rebellion, in the 1924
Paris production. |
Robot from the production at St. Martin's -- before that theatre
became the permanent London home of "The Mousetrap." |
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Two intriguing posters for the 1939 WPA Federal Theatre production. | |
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This grainy image is all that survives of a BBC-TV production aired in 1948.
And if that seems early for a television show, consider that this was actually the BBC's second presentation
of R.U.R. -- the first was in 1938! Note that for some reason the robots are shirtless and all male. |
Eastern Illinois University's minimalist 1961 production.
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Shiny shirts abounded in Fraudulent Theatre's 1999 production.
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NYC East Village, year unknown. |
Alquist and robots at Iowa's Pleasant
Valley High School. |
Poster for 2002 Horse Trade Theater Group. |
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"RUR 2000," directed by Terry Converse
for Washington State University in the fall of 1999, sought to emulate the spirit of Čapek's political
satire by bending the text in the direction of religious extremism. |
In 2004 the Theatre Department at Massachusett's Westfield
State College
adapted the play as a musical, apparently basing their designs on those of the UAB production.
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