What does it mean to be human in an age of technology?

That question — so timely today — was unpacked nearly a century ago when Czech playwright Karel Capek wrote Rossum’s Universal Robots, a piece of science fiction theater that introduced the world to the concept of a robot doing the work of humans. In that tale, all goes horribly wrong.

The Wabash College Theater Department will take up that question — and plenty more — when it stages Mac Rogers’ 2009 adaptation of the play, Universal Robots, which opens February 21 and runs nightly through February 24 in Ball Theater in the Fine Arts Center. Curtain is at 8:00 p.m. and free tickets can be reserved online through the Fine Arts Center Box Office.

“Mac Rogers is a friend of a friend, and I’ve been wanting to do this play for some time,” said director James Cherry. “This is a play that asks so many big, philosophical, moral, ethical questions. It’s a perfect play to do at Wabash because these are questions of the liberal arts; these are enduring questions.”

Among them: What does it mean to be human? What is the role of technology in contemporary society? What is work? Is it okay to commit evil to prevent another larger evil?

Cherry’s production — guided by costumer and puppet maker Andrea Bear, set and lighting designer Bridgette Dreher, digital artist Matthew 皇冠足球比分_澳门皇冠体育-在线|平台@edman, and sound designer Tim Melville — explores the issues of rapid technological change in Europe in the period immediately after World War I. The adapted script takes Capek’s original story and plants it in an alternative history.

“This is a massive, deeply collaborative, cross-disciplinary project,” Cherry said.

Rogers places the original pla