Theater Review: R.U.R.(Rossum’s Universal Robots)

by Mark-Brian Sonna of MBS Productions

Rossum’s Universal Robots, also known by its acronym R.U.R., by Karel Čapek was first produced in 1921. This play introduced to the world the word “Robot”, which comes from the Czech word “Robota” which means servitude or drudgery. The robots in this play are manufactured organic creations, and operate more like androids. The robots are created to serve the human race because they are cheaper and in the end disposable, since they are only able to last for 20 years and can’t reproduce. Eventually the robots outnumber the humans and decide to revolt against their owners and annihilate the human race. When they take over the factory in which they were produced, they save the life of only one human and command him to give them the secret of their creation. Unbeknownst to the robots, the secret had been destroyed. Near the end, the one human discovers that two of the robots are more evolved and are able to express the feeling of love, and perhaps procreate, thus ensuring the survival of the new species. He renames them Adam and Eve.

While many of the plot elements are predictable by today’s standards – see the movie I, Robot, or just about any episode of the TV series Star Trek: the Next Generation – it was absolutely revolutionary in its day. What this play is effective in conveying is a series of philosophical questions such as: What makes someone a sentient being? What does it mean to be human? It also serves to point out the destructive nature of capitalism, and the destructive nature of socialism, and communism, if each system is left to run amok. It also makes strong statements about the abuse of power of governments and how society will dehumanize that which is “foreign” so as to maintain control, and how the powerful impose their ideology upon others. One only need to look at the present world situation with all the conflicts in the Middle East, the controversy regarding embryonic stem cell research, abortion, the level of corporate greed and corruption from world wide companies, to see that this play, though dated in it’s technological concepts, is still current. This play is a gem ready to be rediscovered and seen by all.

Unfortunately, the production at University of Texas at Dallas, misses the mark. I’m being kind...it really, really, really misses the mark. It is plagued by numerous problems. This play falls apart in the first few minutes and never recovers. This said, I found myself so fascinated by the poor execution, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. I was never bored because I found myself absorbed listening to the script while at the same time befuddled by the outrageously bad choices being made. I would equate it with going to the doctor for a prostate exam: it’s not boring, but it sure is unpleasant.

Upon entering the theatre, the first thing I noticed was the gorgeous set and the gorgeous lighting. So how could it be a problem? Because of the enormity and the multiple layers of the set, the blocking became clunky, making entrances and exits too long and awkward. While the lighting was gorgeous prior to the show, Jeff Stover who did the lighting design, decided to demonstrate his technical prowess and the complex lighting capacity of the theatre to the detriment of the play. When the character Helena Glory enters, the stage went to black except for a swirling spot light. I felt like I was supposed to go “ooooh, how cool, what a neat effect” but it made absolutely no sense in the context of the play. For a while every time the main door opened and shut the set colors changed from red to blue to green, etc. but then, inexplicably, this change stopped, which was a good thing because I quit trying to guess what color was coming next. To say the lighting was distracting is to make an understatement.

The costuming, wigs, and make-up were inconsistent. I know they were attempting to give a 1920’s feel to the play, but some of the outfits were cartoonish while others were very realistic. The wigs were a major problem as some had seen a better day, or were so inferior in quality they looked like a bad, cheap wig. Also not all the actors properly hid their hair underneath, so you had a blonde wig sitting atop a brunette actor. One had so many strands hanging out from underneath I had to suppress the urge to get out of my seat and go on stage and tuck the girl’s hair under it. I was hoping at intermission the problem would have been solved, but it wasn’t. The make-up was realistic on some and applied with a heavy handed trowel on others. Why the male character Alquist played by Wes Ferguson had raccoon eyes, I have no idea. Perhaps they wanted to imitate the make-up styles of silent era films. If that was the case then everyone should have done the same style. The only person whose heavy dose of make-up seemed not out of context was on Ben Connors, who played Primus Robot. He managed to find the balance between looking artificial and human. More on him later…

The props and set change were problematic. Everyone seemed to be suffering from the “dropsies”. There was one semi-human head model that was knocked over so much, that I was grateful when the lead actor just simply moved it and laid it on it’s side so it would quite falling. I don’t mind watching actors do scene changes; in fact, if it’s done properly it can add to the experience. When I direct plays I insist my actors, though they’ll complain, rehearse over and over the scene change so that it goes smoothly. There’s a reason for this: watching an actor trying to find the spike mark on the floor for a set piece makes the audience lose the focus of the play. At one point the audience nearly burst into applause when the one actor, after multiple attempts, finally placed the leg of the table in the correct spot.

The acting was allover the map. I realize this was a college production so I’m not expecting stellar performances. This said, I wasn’t sure where the fault lies in the performances, if it was in the actors or the director, Thomas Riccio, or perhaps both. It’s clear that some of the actors had some talent. In fact, Brad Hennigan who plays Harry Domin is an accomplished actor in his own right whose paths I’ve crossed with back during the days of Deep Ellum Theatre Garage, and Lori McCarty who plays the female lead Helena Glory also exhibited some talent. This play either needed to be performed as a melodrama with lots of high camp, or played straight. Half the time the actors were overacting turning it into a melodrama, and the other half turning in realistic performances. This was jarring. The melodrama route didn’t work because the play is too long for that, the joke wears thin. Realism would have been the better way to go, but none of the characters played any subtext. By not playing the subtext certain plot moments made no sense. The biggest example of this happens in Act 1 when Helena comes to the factory and Harry explains his robotic creations. Listening to the dialogue, I became aware that the subtext would indicate that these two will fall in love. When Harry proposes to Helena and she accepts at the end of Act 1, the audience laughed for it took them by surprise. The moment isn’t supposed to be comedic, though. I sensed the subtext of the scene, yet it wasn’t played out. Had it been done so, the audience wouldn’t have been surprised.

The bevy of scientists and robots we meet ranged from 3 Stooges-like buffoons, to genuine and sincere. When the horrors of the drama begin to unfold, we are left feeling indifferent for we don’t care if these characters live or die. As an audience member I kept feeling I should feel something when it is revealed that the entire human race is being brutally killed. Instead I was thinking to myself “oh, good, the play will end soon.”

Another problem was the physical movement of the robots. They did not know how to move like a robot! An attempt was made, but it looked like it was a bunch of actors trying to act like a robot. There was no believability and no uniformity. Some attempted to do a break dancing “robot” others attempted to do a glide as they walked across the floor. The production desperately needed a movement coordinator. The only one that did it to great effect, in fact this actor gave me and my theatre companion goosebumps when he appeared on stage in the last scene was Ben Connors as Primus Robot. His movements were deliberate and slightly slow. He moved and gestured like a normal human being but at ¾’s the normal speed. This slight slowing down (he even blinked a little slower) with his deliberate delivery of lines in which every word was spoken in the same pace yet he followed natural inflection, made you believe he was artificially created. His whole pacing, line delivery, was so dead on, that during his scene I began to re-evaluate the entire play. Up to that point I felt like the play, though fascinating with its themes and philosophical discussion, was rather cold and unemotional. Mr. Connors so genuinely creeped me out that I realized the play could be bone chilling and terrifying. What made his performance stand out is that he was actually a “benign” robot yet I feared him. If only the rest of the “robots”, and the “humans” could have turned in such a nuanced performance, this play would have become riveting.

While I’d like to say Mr. Connor’s performance is worth the price of admission, it’s not since he only appears at the end, and his stage time is very limited. The evening was frustrating because the production did such a disservice to this great script. Someone else needs to tackle it and do it justice. I personally dislike having to give such a negative review to a group of students who so eagerly worked on a production. I could tell it was a labor of love. Unfortunately, the show was bad…really bad.