'20S PLAY ABOUT ROBOTS JUST TOO MECHANICAL.

Byline: Julio Martinez Correspondent

Czechoslovakian playwright Karel Capek's sojourn into a future world where mankind must do battle with the technology it has created must have seemed like avant-garde fare when it premiered in 1921. Today, its preachy but simplistic premise and awkward, self-conscious plot relegate the work to a minor place in theatrical history. In fact, its main claim to fame is Capek's invention of the term ``robot,'' which has far outlived the work from which it sprung.

This said, even a museum piece deserves some level of competency. The most telling aspect of the work is its very real concern that, as humans harness the power of technology, they will sublimate their morality and their souls. Unfortunately, director Jerome Guardino's ponderous, community theater-level staging and a painfully inconsistent ensemble fail to enliven or give validity to the playwright's concerns while glaringly exposing the weaknesses in the work.

The story is set on the remote island headquarters of Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.), where general manager Domin (Arlan Boggs) competently oversees the construction of millions of mechanical laborers who are shipped around the world to relieve mankind from the burdens of mindless toil. The back story as to how R.U.R. came into existence is an exercise in expositional tedium. It is sufficient to say that Domin and his jovial all-male co-workers are very successfully supplementing the world's work force. The only thing they lack is a little female companionship.

Capek solves this problem by having Helena (Casey Ging), the visiting youthful daughter of the company's president, for no apparent reason, immediately acquiesce to Domin's marriage proposal, a man she had met for the first time the day before. Over the next five years, she not only becomes beloved by everyone human on the island, she even talks one of the company's scientists, Dr. Gall (Robert Gallo), into putting a little soul into the robots' psyches. As it turns out, becoming even somewhat human is enough to send this mechanical civilization into a quest for self-determination. Only mankind itself stands in its way.

Robert McCollum is truly menacing as the robot leader Radius. It is incomprehensible, however, why director Guardino would have the robots walk and talk in such an awkward, stilted manner when the playwright has already determined they have all the motor skills enjoyed by humans.

The facts

--The show: ``R.U.R.''

--Where: Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.

--When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through July 23.

--Tickets: $16.

--Information: [phone].

--Our rating: Two stars.