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#Culture

Flowers for Algernon at Chisto Teatr Intact (#Culture)

#Culture #SelfDevelopment #SciFi #Theater

On stage, a woman in a white coat faces Charlie under red light, with handwritten pages in the background

Charlie sits by a door under violet stage lighting, surrounded by handwritten pages

Charlie reaches toward a man in a cap and apron on a theatre stage

The actor playing Charlie stands alone beside a reel-to-reel recorder against handwritten pages

A woman in a robe and Charlie stand together under violet stage lighting

A selfie of a woman and a bearded man seated together in the audience

Yesterday Nastya and I saw “Flowers for Algernon,” and it was excellent. The actors did everything they could to bring the work to life before the audience, and they succeeded. Remarkably, three actors played every character on a stage furnished only with blocks, walls, and a door. Their performances made Charlie Gordon’s entire story visible and believable. The director also found a way to combine the acting with the novel’s device—the protagonist’s diary of the changes happening to him—which unfolds roughly as follows:

  • At the beginning, Charlie has an intellectual disability, does his job conscientiously, and longs to become smart. He diligently learns to read and write at night school, where two scientists looking for a test subject find him. Charlie agrees to an experiment intended to increase his intelligence, hoping it will make him happier and let him talk to his mother ...
  • The experiment succeeds and gives him the expected increase in intelligence, yet he remains cut off from society ... only now at the opposite tail of the Gaussian curve ...
  • In the end, the change proves temporary, and when its time runs out, regression begins ... first in Algernon, the white laboratory mouse and Charlie’s only true friend, and then in Charlie himself.

This story is deeply personal to me. I read it at a time when, after a head injury and cerebral edema, I was watching my own abilities change in a way that resembled Charlie near the end of the book; that was about 8-9 years ago. Fortunately, treatment helped and my abilities recovered, although I wore glasses for another couple of years. Emerging from that experience, I became a much more public person. My motivation was to share what I knew while I was still in good shape. And when I am old, I will be able to show my children that their dad was not always a little slow :))

P.S. Nastya, my wife, and I were the only two in our party. She nodded knowingly when Charlie reached the peak of his abilities; to me, that felt like constructive feedback ...

P.P.S. On August 29, my eldest son and I are going back to the same theater to see “Looking for Alaska.”

#SelfDevelopment #SciFi #Culture #Theater