by Daniel Keyes
But there was hope. As one columnist put it," Charlie and Algernon... whose high spot is a 'dance' with a man and mouse, is getting good 'word of mouse' talk."
In the Playbill's "Who's Who in the Cast," Algernon is listed as being played by Himself, and having had "extensive training in jazz, tap and mazerunning." Although Algernon is quoted as applauding the title, "He would have preferred alphabetical billing."
So Charlie and Algernon made it to Broadway. I sat proudly in the orchestra with family, relatives, and friends, as the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose to Charlie's childlike tune....
The musical numbers build in complexity. "The Maze" is followed by "Whatever Time There Is," a plaintive love duet between Charlie and Alice, foreshadowing the ending.
In an operatic aria at the peak of his intelligence, "Charlie" soars to heights I had never imagined. Hearing it, I find myself almost hoping they had changed the ending at the last moment. Like the rest of the audience, I don't want Charlie to lose it all, and I don't want Algernon to die.
But Charlie's simple, final song, "I Really Loved You," surprises tears from my eyes.
As Charlie sits beside Algernon's grave, the theater is silent. When the curtain falls, there is an explosion of applause. Charlie brings Algernon back on stage to take his bow. At the drum roll, Algernon runs a little circle.
A roar from the audience and a standing ovation.
There is no way to convey the excitement of an opening night at the theater, especially if the characters and story are your own creation. As the audience leaves, buzzing with praise for the show, the rest of us head for the traditional opening-night party at Sardi's.
The gathering includes the producers, backers, cast, friends, columnists, and theater people—the "glitterati," as someone once dubbed them. This is the feast before the high point, the ritual of waiting for tomorrow's New York Times review, which will hit the stands by eleven o'clock tonight. We have no worries about that Hadn't Mel Gusso, reviewing it for the Times, already praised it in Washington, as "...a show with a heart about our minds"?
As we enter Sardi's I recall my visit to the men's room after my adolescent "second acting" opening-night debacle. The situation has changed, and I'm happy to be back in New York Sardi's is my dream come true.
But after a while, I sense something. A chill in the air. People drifting toward the exit. What's going on? Then I see people in the anteroom reading newspapers. The New York Times has arrived. I feel a tightness in my chest. Someone hands me a copy, and I read the review by Frank Rich.
"Though this musical boasts unusual heroes and enough philosophical truisms to fill a dozen fortune cookies, it is a very ordinary and at times very irritating entertainment."
David Rogers's book and lyrics comes in for harsh criticism. "...Mr. Rogers exploits his brain-damaged hero fir ready-made bathos ... The tone of the evening is not so much inspirational as manipulative and smug"..."old fashioned direction, [and the] minimal choreography do not exactly send the evening's fractionalized components into orbit."
Frank Rich calls Charles Strause's music, "often tuneful but rarely rousing." Unaware that "Tomorrow" had originally been written for Charlie, Rich complains: "Indeed, there are a number of songs that baldly attempt to repackage the uplift of 'Tomorrow' from Mr. Strouse's 'Annie.'"
Mr. Rich refers to the set as, "drably utilitarian".
He praises only P. J. Benjamin: "Once Charlie gains his faculties, the attractive Mr. Benjamin displays a sweet voice and limber charm that are the show's principal assets." But the actress who plays Alice "is hamstrung by a wan singing voice."
Rich adds, "Ofcourse, I'm not forgetting about Algernon. He's a cute little mouse ... and he does a mean little softshoe. Still, I must confess that even his tragic death, just in time for the final curtain, lift me cold."
"...'Charlie and Algernon' pays far too cheap a price fir its audience's tears."
By the time my guests and I leave Sardi's, the place is almost empty. No one speaks. A pall of death hangs over the dining room as waiters clear the tables still laden with food and drink.
The producers keep the show open for thirty days. Charlie and Algernon is nominated for a Tony Award, for Best Musical Score, too late to save it. I feel Frank Rich has already killed it. And Algernons death, he says, "left him cold."
Well, what do I expect? I'd fought for the tragic ending. I can't complain. A line from the last song flows through my mind. "It's really over..."
But, of course, it never is.
23. And Then What Happened?
THROUGHOUT THE '70S, '80S, AND '90S, as I wrote and published several other books, TV producers contacted me directly and through various agents about licensing the rights to make "Flowers for Algernon" into a movie for television. I had believed all those years, since 1961, when I signed Cliff Robertson's movie contract, that I had reserved those rights for myself.
Everywhere the legal language included the words TV rights, I had insisted they be crossed out. Robertson had bought the movie rights for what I believed was a pittance when I was a young, inexperienced author, and even at that time I'd felt the agents and attorneys were giving away too much for too little.
So I had insisted on retaining TV movie rights.
However, several prominent entertainment attorneys agreed with Cliff Robertson that I did not own TV movie rights, because, they said, when I had signed the contract, "Made for TV Movies," or "Movies of the Week" did not exist. Therefore, according to industry custom, I must have meant I was reserving only live TV movie rights.
And, they insisted, no one was doing live TV movies.
When I received an offer for the television motion picture rights from Citadel Entertainment, I submitted it to Cliff Robertson again under "the right of first refusal" clause. Through his attorney, he insisted he already owned those rights, and I could not license them to anyone else.
Three years later, with Citadel's help, I went back to Beverly Hills—back to arbitration. Then, ten years after the previous arbitration over the dramatic-musical, I received the news:
AWARD OF ARBITRATOR
Claimant is entitled to develop, license and otherwise exploit his book "Flowers for Algernon" for a television movie pursuant to an agreement with Citadel Entertainment.
David Ginsberg, president of Citadel, told the Hollywood Reporter: "From the lawyer's side of my brain I believed ... profoundly that we could legally secure these rights. The creative side of my brain wanted to do this project so much that it was worth the years of litigation to have it finally concluded in our favor."
A new TV two-hour movie, keeping the original title, was then scheduled to be telecast by CBS-TV as a "major event" movie during the February 2000 "sweeps." The script, written by John Pielmeier, who wrote Agnes of God, pleased me. Matthew Modine, an actor I had admired ever since I saw him in Birdy, was cast as Charlie. Principal photography was begun in April 1999—exactly forty years after first publication of the novelette in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The novel version never made any of the bestseller lists, because its sales have been spread over more than thirty-four years. Yet, slowly, it has made its own way around the world. To put things in perspective: Bantam Books has sold almost five million copies of the paperback edition. It is taught in schools at all levels across the country.
In Japan, sales by Hayakawa Publishing have now reached a million and a half copies in hardcovers. It is used in Japanese schools, in both English and Japanese, to teach students how to read and write English.
Since its first publication, the novel version has been published in twenty-seven foreign editions.
Over the past forty years, I've been asked two recurring questions. First, "Why do you write? And why did you write this particular story?"
I remember the late Walter Tevis once telling me he'd written The Hustler, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Color of Money, "...for fame, fortune, and the love of beautiful women." I
knew that wasn't why I wrote, and I've never had an easy answer for that question. Perhaps that's why I've written this memoir, as my own "summing up."
Recently, I was given another unexpected gift that connected me to the past, and gave me the answer to why I'd become a writer.
On the morning that seventy-seven-year-old John Glenn, the Challenger crew, and NASA were preparing for the shuttle's return to earth, I was preparing to deliver the keynote address for the Seventeenth Annual Writers Conference of the Space Coast Writers Guild a few miles away, in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
I had struggled the night before to find an ending to the talk, but I was frustrated and unsatisfied. At breakfast the next morning, I was handed a bulky manila envelope. There was no explanatory note—just a sheaf of about thirty letters from students describing their reactions after having read the novelette version of "Flowers for Algernon."
Later, I learned they had been written by graduating ninth-grade junior high school students in two gifted classes as part of a class assignment competition. I was deeply touched. Writers of the three winning letters, selected by their classmates, had been awarded an all-expense-paid visit to the conference to sit with me.
I didn't plan what was to follow. As I reached the end of my address, thinking about "why" I wrote, I recalled Tevis's comment about writing for "fame, fortune, and the love of beautiful women," and I quoted it. Then I read aloud passages from the award-winning student letters I had been given that morning.
Dear Mr. Keyes,
With the example of Charlie Gordon's thirst for knowledge, I too wanted to grasp all the knowledge I could. This story very quickly became my favorite.
Wanting to share this story with others, I read the story over the phone to my friend.... He listened intendy, never saying a word. Personally, I thought he fell asleep. After reading the last few words ... I asked why he was so silent. Sniffling, with a soft voice he replied, "That's the most touching story I've ever heard." After I conversed with him for a few minutes, he told me that he was dyslexic, and knew about the pains of growing up with a learning disability. He never told any of his friends before ... Thank you for listening.
Signed: A. F.
Dear Mr. Keyes,
For all of my life, I've been a bright child—getting top grades and joining the gifted program—but these things I was blessed with, I took for granted. I never actually stopped and thought about just how lucky I was, that is, until I read your short story, "Flowers for Algernon." "Flowers for Algernon" had a very big impact on my life, and how I feel about the lives of others. It opened my eyes to how cruel our society can be to a mentally challenged person.
There is a man ... who lives down my Grandma's road. Five days a week, he rides his bike to his brother's plant nursery to work and usually stops to talk to my Grandma when she's on her front porch. He is in his forties but has the mind of a child. Each time we see him, he smiles, waves, and joyously calls, "Hi-i-i Ruthie!" to my Grandma.
Once, [he] told my Grandma that, at the nursery, a 7-foot-tall tree fell on him when he was moving it. He said that the people around him just pointed and laughed even though he needed help. His story reminded me of Charlie's co-workers that made fun of him.
I think that your story is a very beneficial contribution to our literature today. It stimulates our minds by inducing creative thought about operations such as Charlie's and it pulls at our emotions through Charlie's accomplishments and Mures. I think that if everyone were to read "Flowers for Algernon," we could make our society better suited for, and much kinder to, the mentally challenged.
Thank you so much for writing such a wonderful story to share with us. Keep writing.
Signed: S. B.
Dear Daniel Keyes,
I have recently re-read "Flowers for Algernon" and was surprised at how I'd forgotten how encouraging, supportive, and educating your story was. Once again, I was truly inspired...
"Flowers for Algernon" is encouraging to me because it helps me to remember to be patient with those who are slower than I am. I am more willing to help others and lend support. Your character's purity and inner strength show the undeniable need for kindness and knowledge in the world today. Most important though, it educated me (and many others I am sure) to be thankful for what I am blessed with.
Signed: K. R.
I pointed to the students at the front table, and held up their letters to the audience. "When that boy said to me, 'Mr. Keyes, I want to be smart,' he gave me the voice and character of Charlie. I dropped it like a pebble into the ocean. And now, it still spreads ripples, into the hearts of young people, like these three, whose letters I shared with you tonight—letters that were a gift to me this morning."
The conference ended on that note, but I've thought about it since. In my childhood, my love of books led me to want to become a writer. In my early thirties, when I believed I was dying without the novel ever being published and thought I was looking into the abyss of my mortality, I'd said, "Thank God I finished the book." That's when I knew I was a writer.
Now, in my own senior years, when I read letters like these from my readers, I understand why I write, and why I'll keep writing as long as I can. I write in the hope that, long after I'm gone, my stories and books, like pebbles dropped into water, will continue to spread in widening circles and touch other minds. Possibly, other minds in conflict with themselves.
The second most frequently asked question is about the ending. Since Algernon dies, does that mean that Charlie also dies? Or did I intentionally leave it open-ended for a sequel?
As I've said earlier, I do not believe a writer should interpret or explain the meanings or intentions of a particular work, so I always answer, "I don't know."
Yet, over the years, I have always felt Charlie's presence. All I can say is, I still see him in that classroom, fifty years ago, walking up to my desk and stopping to say, "Mr. Keyes, I want to be smart."
Wherever he is, whatever he's doing, I will never forget those words that gave me the key to unlock the story and the novel. His words have touched tens of millions of readers and moviegoers around the world. And they've changed my life as well.
Because of him, I'm a lot smarter now than I was the day his path crossed mine.
Afterword
My "What Would Happen If ... ?" Is Happening
I'VE DISCOVERED THAT ONE of the methods high school teachers and college professors use in discussing "Flowers for Algernon" is to stimulate debate about the morality of using science to increase animal or human intelligence if fiction ever became a reality. That issue hit home far sooner than I expected.
On the morning of September 2, 1999, after I'd finished what I believed was the final chapter of this book, I decided to celebrate with my favorite breakfast at a local restaurant. The waiter delivered my order, and I propped up the New York Times to read while I ate. When I saw the front-page headline, I dropped my fork.
SCIENTIST CREATES A SMARTER MOUSE
WORK ON FORMATION OF MEMORY
MAY SOMEDAY HELP PEOPLE
The idea that had crossed my mind on a train station more than fifty years earlier—"What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence?"—had found its way into the laboratories of Molecular Biology at Princeton, of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT, and of Anesthesiology and Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Times was reporting on an article called "Genetic enhancement of learning and memory in mice," published in that days issue of the journal Nature. Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, a neurobiologist at Princeton, and his research team, described how they had altered genes in mice embryos and discovered a "graded switch for memory formation."
The gene NR2B is crucial to learning because it helps build the protein that acts as a receptor for specific chemical signals we experience as memories. This receptor is plentiful in young mice, but drops off drastically after sexual maturity. By adding more of this single gene to mouse embryos, they were able to ma
ke the embryos grow up as more intelligent mice.
Also, the offspring of these genetically altered mice, according to Dr. Tsien, "exhibit superior ability in learning and memory in various behavioral tasks." Scientists believe that adults whose memory and learning genes are boosted in this way might be able to develop the learning skills of youngsters.
The smart mice outperformed wild mice in several tests, such as the speed of remembering the location of a submerged platform hidden below murky water. Also, mice generally respond to familiar objects and new objects with equal interest. But in these tests the smart mice showed significantly greater interest in new objects—a sign of improved memory in recalling the familiar objects.
In two other experiments, gene-altered mice and their offspring displayed superior emotional memory as well. They were quicker to respond to a threat than the wild mice. After having been placed into a box and then given a mild shock, they were quicker at learning to fear the box itself, as evidenced by flinching, running, jumping, or squeaking.
But when the shock was discontinued, no longer associated with the box, the super-mice were quicker to learn not to fear the box. Conditioned behavior, and deconditioning behavior, both obviously survival traits, displayed what the scientists called emotional intelligence, what some contemporary neuropsychologists now call E.Q.
I stared at my uneaten cold breakfast, paid the bill, and went back to my office to finish reading the article. Then I checked out the Internet to see what the response had been to the new discoveries. Just as I had expected, controversy had surfaced quickly, among scientists as well as the media.
Dr. Eric R. Kandel, a leading brain expert at Columbia University, who praised the quality and reliability of Dr. Tsien's work, told the New York Times that the first applications of Dr. Tsien's work should be medical—helping those with memory loss. Kandel responded to the idea of enhancing normal intelligence as "neurobiological cosmetics ... a very slippery turf from a moral point of view..." He was quoted as saying, "It's one thing to improve memory in people with a memory deficit. But to begin to mess around with normal memory is tricky. I don't think we want to emphasize in society that intelligence is the only factor that counts ... I wouldn't want to come across with some simplistic view that 'Take this pill' and we could produce a superior race."