Rejected Failures!
Here are some of the failures that were considered for character/plot elements in the opera (going up in Chicago in April) and were subsequently rejected.
(…err…at least maybe…I still don’t really know what’s going on with anything in Act 1.)
They are categorized according to the type / cause of failure, and further judged as to whether they are “tragic,” or “just a failure.”
Google any of them for further information. Fictional characters/events regarded, for these purposes as “real.”
CAUSELESS / INEXPLICABLE FAILURE
The state of North Dakota
Just a failure
George W. Bush
Just a failure
The US Railroad System
Just a failure
FAILURE OF LOGIC
The Prodigal Son’s Brother
We had a fight about this one
George W. Bush might also fit in this category
Again, just a failure
MAN-MADE "NATURAL DISASTERS"
Centralia, PA
Just a failure
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Just a failure
Cuyahoga River
Just a failure
Nauru
Tragic
Killer Bees
Just a failure (and doubly so...since they also, like Y2K, failed to be the threat they were trumped up to be)
"BRAVE," BUT SHIT ON BY NATURE
Hemingway’s Santiago
Tragic
Thomas Harvey Smith
Undecided
"BRAVE" BUT MISGUIDED
Eilmer of Malmesbury
Just a Failure
(Eilmer might still make the cut and slip into the show)
Thomas Harvey Smith could possibly be here too
The Weathermen / Weather Underground
Just Failures
"BRAVE," NOT MISGUIDED, BUT SHIT ON BY OTHER PEOPLE
Don Quixote
Tragic
John Brown
Tragic
St. Ursula was also in this category and decidedly tragic…I think the aim is to make her walk the line of "tragic" and "just a failure."
PAWNS IN A GREATER GAME
Stravinsky’s Rake
Undecided
Berg’s Wozzeck
Just a failure
Hagar
Tragic
TOO FAMOUS (FAILED TO BE AT ALL OBSCURE)
The Hindenburg
We had a fight about this one too
Das Boot
Tragic
(not the movie, the sub and the guys in the movie)
Howard Hughes Spruce Goose
(We actually fought about whether or not this was even a failure in the technical sense…I mean, the thing flew, albeit years too late, and billions of dollars too expensively.)
PS.
We had discussed the repeated assassination of the now lame-duck W as a substantial plot element, but maybe the democratic congress will take care of that for us.
If you type “greatest failure in history” into Google, the biography of George Bush is the no. 3 hit. He used to be no.2, but the Iraq War has taken over at no.1.
Ahh, Google, the arbiter of the collective consciousness.
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