While life is random and unfair, it is also undoubtedly precious.
That’s the theme of “Failure: A Love Story,” by Philip Dawkins, which Washougal High School theater students will perform the next two weekends.
The play focuses on the three Fail sisters, Nelly, Jenny June and Gerty, who die within one year of each other.
But despite the obvious tragedy of three members of the same family passing suddenly, the play is focused not on how they die. Instead, it places emphasis on how the sisters savor life to its fullest, and why the power of love is far greater than any individual’s successes or failures.
“I am always looking for plays that help the students really think and help take them in a different direction,” said WHS theater teacher Kelly Gregersen. “A former student of mine in the Bay Area sent this script to me, and I just fell in love with it. This is a show about love, life and loss.”
By the end of 1928, the audience is told, Nelly, Jenny June and Gerty will all be dead, expiring in reverse order, youngest to oldest, from blunt object to the head, disappearance and finally consumption. Songs and a whimsical chorus follow their stories as they live out their lives above the family clock repair shop near the Chicago River.