by Dennis Dalman
Four Sartell students are involved in a 102-year-old play entitled “R.U.R.”, which portrays the inherent, insidious dangers of artificial intelligence. It will be performed at St. John’s Prep School Nov. 17-19.
The Sartell residents – all SJP students – are Sam Dupuy, Cecilia Weldon and Emma Zaun, who have acting roles in the production; and Lauren Martinson, a member of the play’s stage crew.
Written by Czech playwright, Karel Capek (pronounced Kah-rell Chah-peck), “R.U.R.” introduced the world to the word “robot.”
The play opened last weekend in the Weber Center at SJP, Collegeville. It will be performed again this weekend at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 17 and 18. There will be a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. on Nov. 19.
To get to the prep school, drive westbound on Interstate-94, take exit 156, then on the road leading to St. John’s Abbey, watch for the first four-way stop, turn left and drive past the football field on the left. When you come to a T in the road, turn right and you’ll see SJP.
“R.U.R.” is an acronym for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” Playwright, journalist and critic Capek (1890-1938) coined the term “robot” for that play, though he later credited his brother, Josef, for first using that term. It derives from the Czech word “robota,” meaning forced labor, the kind that serfs/slaves had to perform on the lands of their “masters.”
The robots in “R.U.R.” are not clanky metal contraptions but flesh-and-blood creates that look and act like the human beings that “manufactured” them.
Now considered a classic forerunner of dystopian literature, “R.U.R.” is set by Capek in the then-faraway future year of 2,000 A.D. The first scene of the play takes place in a factory that makes artificial people (robots) created from synthetic organic matter. At first, the flesh-and-blood robots are quite happy to work for their human makers, but discontent and then anger later compel them to revolt worldwide against their masters.
In many ways, “R.U.R” is a dark allegory of the social-political-economic turmoil so dominant in Europe at that time, when many revolutionary movements attempted to overthrow governments that oppressed working people who were over-worked serfs/slaves.
“R.U.R” was widely performed in Europe and North America and was hailed as a visionary, sinister dystopian masterpiece. Although in many ways, the play is grim and even disturbing, there are some lighter moments and even some humorous scenes throughout.
Directed by SJP faculty member Brandon Anderson, St. Joseph, “R.U.R.” features a cast of about two dozen actors, many of them performing as the flesh-and-blood robots.
The human and robot roles are performed by Sartellians Dupuy, Weldon and Zaun; and Elizabeth Komagum, Kampala, Uganda in Africa; Aksel Henry Newman, St. Cloud; Annika Dauer, Cold Spring; Levi Van Heel, United Arab Emirates; Tom Fuchs-Pochacker, Melk, Austria; Isaac Miller, Cold Spring; Jaden Weniger, Oowasso, Okla.; Sophie Grandy, Glenwood; Jayde Nazarene BearsTail, Red Lake; Miranda Louis, Paynesville; Grace Hofer, Miller, S.D.; Ethan Whitehead, Waite Park; Annie (Theo) Reisinger, St. Cloud; Christie Odeh, St. Cloud; Cerys John, St. Cloud; John Ruzanic, Cold Spring; and Zach Gordon, St. Cloud.
Two actors rehearse a scene from St. John’s Prep School’s production of “R.U.R.” At left is Jayde Nazarene BearsTail, Red Lake. At right is Emma Zaun, Sartell.
Two student actors at St. John’s Prep School practice their dialogue during a rehearsal of the play “R.U.R.” At left is Emma Zaun, Sartell; at right is Isaac Miller, Cold Spring.
Two characters confront each other in a scene from “R.U.R.” The two actors are Amanda Louis, Paynesville (left) and Annika Dauer, Cold Spring.
Two of the lead charaters in “R.U.R.” have a conversation. The actors are Cecilia Weldon, Sartell (left) and Elizabeth Komagum, a foreign-exchange student from Kampala in Uganda, Africa
