Flowers for Algernon

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Flowers for Algernon

By Daniel Keys

Directed Kirsten Wendeborn

April 20-May 6, 2001

The first installment of the 2001 season saw HSC return to an old mainstay site of the Hoboken City Courtroom and ventured to a new site in NYC, the Raw Space Theater with a sentimental piece that won Cliff Robertson an Academy Award, Flowers for Algernon.  The story follows the mentally impaired Charlie, while working with a group of psychologists and scientists agrees to under go an experiment that might "help" him.  Unbeknownst to Charlie, the new operation would hopefully do more than just help Charlie be a little smarter.  The group of doctors go for nothing more than getting rid of his retardation.  Having successfully preformed the same procedure on a mouse name Algernon and had promising results, though the mouse showed complications and died soon after, they decide to go ahead on a human subject.  While in the beginning Charlie struggles to get by in his menial job and the doctors rudimentary test, he soon starts surpassing all of their expectations.  As the experiment works too well and Charlie becomes a genius, he starts to see his once complete life for the heaping of mistreatment as its been.  Told in the form of journal entries, which dovetail into flashback sequences, Charlie begins to examine his life from his early days at home with his family and tries to reconnect with his estranged sister. 

Charlie loses his menial job because of his new found inquisitiveness, but gains a broader knowledge of his life and ponders the ultimate question: Why has he been given this chance.  However, the procedure was only temporarily successful and Charlie quickly reverts to his old self with no real memory of his experience.  While the basic story is one of "What if, one could do this for a mentally impaired person", the story delves deeper into how society views people like Charlie and the reverse discrimination that he felt being smarter than everyone else.  Also, what is the limit to which science should go?  Even though we can do something, does that give us the right to do it?  Is opening Pandora's Box worth the risk? 

Show pictures to follow. 

Locations

Hoboken City Courtroom, Hoboken, NJ

Raw Space Theatre, New York, NY

 

To view other 2001 shows:   

Flowers for Algernon      Hoboken Arts & Music Festival      Merry Wives of Windsor     Hamlet    Richard III

 

To view other seasons: 

2003    2002   2001   2000    1999    1998    1997    1996    1995    1994/1993    1992

 

For listings and information on our 2004 season.

 
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