Robot wars: 100 years on, it’s time to reboot Karel Čapek’s RUR

I was honored to play Alquist in Artistic Prosperity’s virtual production of RUR over the summer. I’m glad to see Čapek’s play is getting some attention in the Guardian.

Not many plays introduce a new word to the language. One that did was Karel Čapek’s RUR: Rossum’s Universal Robots that had its premiere in Prague 100 years ago this month. Every time we use the word “robot” to denote a humanoid machine, it derives from Čapek’s play, which coined the term from the Czech “robota” meaning forced labour. But a play that was hugely popular in its time – its Broadway premiere in 1922 had a cast that included Spencer Tracy and Pat O’Brien as robots – has now fallen into neglect. Given our fascination with artificial intelligence, it’s high time we gave it another look. —Guardian