assembly line." Origin of the word "robot" The play introduced the word robot, which displaced older words such as "automaton" or "android" in languages around the world. In an article in Lidové noviny, Karel Čapek named his brother Josef as the true inventor of the word. In Czech, robota means forced labour of the kind that serfs had to perform on their masters' lands and is derived from rab, meaning "slave". The name Rossum is an allusion to the Czech word rozum, meaning "reason", "wisdom", "intellect" or "common sense". It has been suggested that the allusion might be preserved by translating "Rossum" as "Reason" but only the Majer/Porter version translates the word as "Reason". Production history and translations The work was published in two differing versions in Prague by Aventinum in 1920 and 1921. After being postponed, it premiered at the city's National Theatre on 25 January 1921, although an amateur group had by then already presented a production. Already in 1921, 'R.U.R.' was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver, and was adapted for the stage in English by Nigel Playfair in 1922. The American première which derived from the adapted text was at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien played robots in their Broadway debuts. Helena was portrayed by Kentuckian actress and antiwar activist Mary Crane Hone in her Broadway debut. In April 1923 Basil Dean produced R.U.R. in Britain for the Reandean Company at St Martin's Theatre, London. In the 1920s, the play was performed in a number of American and British cities, e.g. the Theatre Guild "Road" in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923. In 1923, two different adapted versions of the translation were published, relating to the American and British premiéres respectively. The US version was published in Garden City by Doubleday, Page & Company, the British one in London by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press. Both published versions abridged the play and eliminated a Robot character named "Damon", the other changes, however, differed. In 1989, a new, unabridged translation by Claudia Novack-Jones restored the elements of the play eliminated by Selver. Another unabridged translation was produced by Peter Majer and Cathy Porter for Methuen Drama in 1999. Critical reception Reviewing the New York production of R.U.R., The Forum magazine described the play as "thought-provoking"