Page:R U R Rossum s Universal Robots.pdf/15

 R. U. R. was first performed in New York at the Garrick Theatre on October 9, 1922. It was the first production of the fifth season of The Theatre Guild. The novelty of its idea and the unusual treatment found an immediate and enthusiastic welcome.

The following excerpts from the New York critcisms will be of interest:—

Alexander Woolcott in the New York Herald— "The Theatre Guild began its new season last evening with an elaborate production of a play in many respects more remarkable than any it has attempted since it first undertook the task of re-making the American theatre from the vantage point of the once abandoned Garrick It is murderous social satire, done in terms of the most hair-raising melodrama. It has as many social implications as the most heady of Shavian comedies, and it also has as many frank appeals to the human gooseflesh as 'The Bat' or any other latter day thriller."

Heywood Broun in the New York World— "The play begins as an extraordinary searching study of the nature of human life and human society Capek is potentially one of the great men in the modern drama. He has devised a scene