A funny and surreal story of servitude and technology, 'R.U.R.', or 'Rossum's Universal Robots' was legendary Czech writer Karel Čapek's first major work for the stage. The play is a gloriously dystopic science-fiction fantasy about robots and the brave new world of the men who mass-produce them. Robots multiply, are bought and sold and gradually take over every aspect of human existence. As people grow idle and stop procreating, the Robots rebel and destroy almost the entire human race. The play was first performed in Prague in 1921.