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Fantasy

Karel Capek, Translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair

3 m., 4 f.

2 ints.

Rossum's Universal Robots turns out millions of manufactured workmen with no souls, desires or feelings. Helena Glory, president of the Humanitarian League, comes to ascertain what can be done to improve their condition. Ten years later, due to Helena's desire to have the Robots more like human beings, the head of the experimental department has secretly changed the formula, and there are enough to make ringleaders and a world revolt of Robots is under way. The rest of the play is magnificent melodrama, with the handful of human beings at bay while their own robots close in on them. In the epilogue, Alquist, the company's builder, is the only human being left on earth. The robots know their bodies will wear out and there will be no new robots to replace them. But Alquist discovers two humanized robots, a young man and young woman, who have a bit of Adam and Even in them, and mankind is about to start afresh.

FEE: Public Domain