Thanks to scientific breakthrough, almost all labor on earth is done by cheap, efficient robots made by the Rossum's Universal Robot company. When a young idealist, seeking to liberate the robots, visits the factory to incite a revolt, she is greeted by the eccentric managers who assure her that robots are, indeed, soulless. However, this is called into question when some of the more advanced robots become displeased with their subjugated status and hatch a plan to destroy their human creators. When all is said and done, the lone survivor is left to ponder his own humanity and the wisdom of playing god. Written in 1920, R.U.R. was the first literary work to use the word 'robot' to describe artificial people.
Adapted for the stage by Sherman L. Sergel and the basis for the 1957 Henry Fonda film 12 Angry Men, the play follows the jury's deliberations in a capital murder trial. A nineteen-year-old kid from the slums stands accused of fatally stabbing his father. The guilty verdict seems inevitable when an initial vote shows eleven to one in favor of conviction. However, the dissent of one juror forces the others to reconsider the evidence and question their preconceived notions about truth and justice.
"Lizzie Borden took an axe..." begins the classic school yard rhyme that sets the stage for Pollock's award-winning historical drama. In 1892, Andrew and Abigail Borden were brutally murdered in their Fall River home. Their daughter Lizzie, though acquitted in court, remains the only suspect ever charged in connection with the killings. Debate as to her guilt continues to this day. Initially produced in 1980, Blood Relations takes a look into the mind of New England's most celebrated axe murderess, breathing new life into one of the most infamous crimes of the nineteenth century.
