This April, Covenant College Theatre will present "Flowers For Algernon," a production that races through both the humorous and tragic to discover what it really means to be human.
Flowers for Algernon will be performed on April 4, 5, 6, and 12 at 8 p.m. and April 13 at 2:30 p.m. at the Sanderson Hall Auditorium, Covenant College, 14049 Scenic Hwy, Lookout Mountain.
Tickets are $10 for general admission, $7 for seniors, military, students and Covenant staff, and free for season pass holders. To reserve tickets, contact the box office at boxoffice@covenant.edu or 706-419-1051. Tickets may also be purchased online at covenant.edu/theatre or at the door, as long as seats remain available.
Review of the play:
Heavily inspired by the Academy and Hugo-Award winning classic drama, Flowers for Algernon delves into the personal journey of a gentle soul who copes with severe learning challenges and through a series of cutting-edge psychological experiments, becomes a high-brow genius—however, not without a price.
When Charlie Gordon, a mentally-challenged man played by freshman Kevin Davenport, becomes the first human to undergo an extraordinary IQ-boosting treatment, he instantly befriends a clever lab mouse and co-experimentee named Algernon with the dream that one day, he will outpace the mouse in maze-running tests. As Charlie’s IQ arcs from 68 to 185, his new intellectual capacities quickly unravel the paradigms he had formerly accepted and he becomes a celebrated scientific success. In just a few months, he falls in love with his former teacher, Ms. Kinnian, is able to tear through War and Peace in a single night, and begins to join his researchers in their study of the “Algernon-Gordon Effect.”
However, as Charlie becomes less recognizable to his friends and family with each passing week, he also learns about the cruel tricks his former co-workers played on him, the consequences of a temporary learning curve, and the loneliness of a brilliant mind. “As Charlie’s wrestling with the fact that he’s changed, the show raises the question of how does one mature emotionally in this broken world without losing the joy and love of people that Charlie has at the beginning?,” says Mr. Davenport.
After long-career of valuing herself by her intellectual achievements, director Maya Pirschel has always felt a personal connection to the story since coming across it in high school. When she had to choose a piece for her senior production, she was drawn back to Algernon’s take on human kindness and what defines us as people. She thinks that it’s important for everyone to be reminded that as creatures crafted in God’s image, “it’s not your IQ that makes you human, it’s your ability to love people.”