Manhattan Theatre Source is staging the world premiere of Mac Rogers’s Universal Robots. This play is set in “the year 2009. The last human being died in 1971. Each year we gather together to tell the story that we never ever forget.”
Rogers’s play is an adaptation of Czech playwright Karel Capek’s classic 1921 play R.U.R., which introduced the word “robot” to the world. Universal Robots “departs significantly from Capek’s script, offering a meaty and riveting story of war, love, faith, technology, and the power of art to change the world, for both good and ill.”
In Universal Robots, “The Great War has just ended. Czechoslovakia is a republic with an elected president and a thriving artistic community that includes celebrated playwright Karel Capek. But history cracks wide open when a young woman walks into Karel’s life with a strange mannequin in a wheelchair… a mannequin that gets up and moves all by itself.”
This alternate history starts with the invention of the robot in 1921 and chronicles the extraordinary consequences of that invention, which changes the world forever. Universal Robots will be at Manhattan Theatre Source, 177 MacDougal Street (between Waverly Place and West 8th Street), New York, New York. Performances will be Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30PM, from 12 February to 7 March 2009. Tickets are $18, and are available from theatermania.com or by calling 212-352-3101.
Certain nights will be special events. For instance, Friday and Saturday, 13 and 14 February, will be Valentine’s Day, with chocolate for all attendees. Saturday 21 February will have a Robots Panel Discussion during the afternoon, featuring Tammy Oler, Dr. Yann LeCun, Dr. Michael L. Littman, and Dan Paluska. For additional information, see the show’s web site, universalrobots.net.