R.U.R. · Rossum's Universal Robots

Written in 1920, R.U.R. premiered in Prague in 1921, and was first performed in New York in 1922, garnering worldwide acclaim for its author and popularizing the word "robot". Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve humans, Capek's Robots are an android product. They remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened "Adam" and "Eve" by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant.