Capek Four Plays: R. U. R.; The Insect Play; The Makropulos Case; The White Plague (World Classics)

I buy this book for containing my favorite play MACROPULUS CASE. The other three are very interesting too and every of them have bin played in English speaking world, when they have bin created. Especially in London and Canada with they warnings about dictators regimes and scary future.R.U.R. is very famous for bringing the word Robot in world languishes. The case Macropulus is about the mankind dream about immortality.Already in the time when it was written and still to to day it is a focused work in psychology a philosophical works. It started with essay from British philosopher Bernard Williams, who liked especially the opera version from this play by Leos Janacek.( He was big lower and expert in modern music). The question he asked is more actual today, then ever.Also Karel Capek play White plague can make today good point in the discussion in this election year.

Capek created the word "robot" with his brother resulting the play "R.U.R.". Capek foresaw the world of 21st century and gave a warning so much ahead of time. This is one book everyone should read before they talk about robot technology and its benefit. T.K.OHSKA

I think K. Capek is a visionary! The plays were written a while ago, but they will be modern in hundreds years from now.

When I was twenty-six –this is fifty-three years ago—I directed the Capek brothers’ expressionist allegory, The Insect Play (1921) in the high school where I was teaching. It was 1962. These are my program notes:director’s notebookPLOTA vagrant having fallen asleep in a woods distant from the city which he has just fled, dreams. Dreams filled with crickets and beetles and other insects in place of humans. The insects act out, in his dreams, the parts of humans. When the old man wakes out of his sleep, his distaste for his own life is confirmed. Then moths appear. They affirm the eternity of life, they twirl and die. In their short lives the vagrant sees a way to live his longer one. But before he can start it, he dies. Dawn. A woodsman discovers the body. A woman enters, carrying a baby. She and the woodsman talk, and then leave, the woodsman to report the death of the old castoff, she taking her baby to its christening.***That’s the plot –all of it. Using only this skeleton, the authors, who lived in as Europe as disillusioned with its life as was the vagrant with his own, commented on what they could see in the Central Europe of the 1920’s. The background for this play is a world at odds with all its old values, unsure of any new –a world just christening the Hitlers, Mussolinis, and Dolphusses of the decade to come. The play mirrors its times.PRODUCTIONTo have effect, this play had to develop in a swelling curve, both in dynamics and in mood. It had to start in a whisper (prologue), well into a quick=p[aced, light, frothy part (act 1), become more stylized but still humorous (start of act 2), grow steadily less humorous (end of act 2) and move to dark overtones (act 3) and then to a peak (epilogue: moths’ death and the death of the old man), and then, very quickly, slide to a soft and quiet end.The play uses empty spaces, periods of no movement, rhythm changes. Crescendos, especially in the third act, are important. All had to be planned ahead of time. Pacing was critical.The characters of the individual kinds of insects were no less important. They had to seem parts of people, not whole people. I wanted their characters to overlap to create a whole (whole mood, not person).If some of what we tried came through, it’s because the cast, mostly novice (only eight had been in a three-act play before—out of 38) worked hard, and in spite of flu, measles, and my sometimes none too gentle criticisms, kept on.d.k.I hope it’s apparent how much I love this play. When we did it, my students stepped up and performed better than I had ever expected. They were good in other plays but they were extraordinary in this one.

While these plays by Karel Capek were written decades ago, they are still timely and are still being produced to this day. I was fortunate enough to have seen "Vec Makropulos" live in Prague Theater and it was widely enjoyed by the audience. Many of Capek's works question our existence and even though he uses insects as characters, they are not science fiction in the usual way of aliens come to earth, but more as a way of questioning why we are here and what is to become of the human race. Capek coined the word "robot" to serve as machines that morph into beings that begin to take over their human creators.

Be prepared to enter another world. The Capek's (for many of the plays are actually written by Karel and his brother - and expressionist artist - Joseph) speak to us today loud and clear from a realm linked to ours but slightly askew. Their perceptions are insightful and their vision resonates still. Whether exploring the inhumanity of man or the humanity of the machine, the futility of labour or the glory of the prolitariate, Capek demands consideration.The translation of the four plays contained in this volume are engaging in their use of the contemporary idiom, though show a little excess due to hindsight ( especially in R.U.R. ). It is however good to have a new version of these pieces, Selvers translation ( which is available in other editions )being used since 1921, though good, has not the clarity necessary for the current century.Thanks must go to the publishers for bringing these plays back into the public domain. I for one hope to see further volumes so a new audience can truely grasp the bredth and depth of both Karel and Joseph Capek's creative vision.

Karel Čapek è uno dei miei autori preferiti, ennesimo figlio geniale di Praga. Lo conoscevo di fama come "inventore del termine robot", poi ho comprato per una manciata di euro quel capolavoro de "La guerra delle salamandre" (consigliatissimo). Da lì, la ricerca di tutto quanto è stato tradotto, prima in italiano (i racconti su tutto, ma ogni sua opera vale la lettura), poi in inglese - di necessità virtù. Il passo successivo sarebbe imparare il ceco, ma credo sia un traguardo poco realistico.

Capek is a great writer and these plays show that perfectly. Highly recommended

Fascinating parts.