Hart, a former college professor, is a freelance writer. In the following essay, she focuses on the play's main author, Karel Capek, and investigates the political theory that lies beneath the veneer of humor in The Insect Play.

Although The Insect Play was an immediate hit on Broadway in the early 1920s, Robert Wechsler states, in Capek in America, that the Capeks and their play were viewed mostly as a novelty. " [Karel] Capek was from a brand new country [that] some reviewers didn't even seem to know about." According to Wechsler, the Capeks' play appealed to an audience that was "taken with the scenery and the special effects." In the 1920s the audience found the Capeks' play entertaining; they were unable, or unwilling, to go beyond the surface meaning of the dialogue. It was viewed as a comedy something that was supposed to be taken lightly.

With...