Favorite Death Scene (Might contain spoilers!)
Favorite Death Scene (Might contain spoilers!)
COOOOLkid
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/15/05
#0Favorite Death Scene (Might contain spoilers!)
Posted: 6/15/06 at 12:47am
Well, I guess I shouldn't say "favorite", but what do you think is the saddest, most emotional character death in a play or a musical?
I'm gonna start with the obvious one, Gavroche. It was just really shocking to watch him gasp for air, and die... Not to mention that tremendously loud gunshot...
"Hey, you! You're the worst thing to happen to musical theatre since Andrew Lloyd Webber!"
-Family Guy
Updated On: 6/15/06 at 12:47 AM
#1re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 12:56am
I don't think your subject header is neccessarily the same as your first sentence. I was prepared to say Bobby Strong. 
Now I'm not sure...
"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt
#2re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 12:59am
favorite, because it looked awesome
was in Scarlet Pimpernel, where it LOOKS like he's been beheaded but he was so NOT
this is not a spoiler thats why I used PRONOUNS!
#3re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:00amSpoiler alert!
"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt
Cages or Wings
Featured Actor Joined: 11/27/04
#4re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:05am
Mimi "La Boheme" style comes in a close second to
Felix in "The Normal Heart" One of the few things in theater that makes me cry no matter what mood I'm in. Nothing hits me as hard as the deathbed nuptials.
Cages or Wings
Featured Actor Joined: 11/27/04
#5re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:07amI feel like this whole thread is an obvious place for spoilers, but I guess maybe an alert should be put in the heading.
#6re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:08amAwake and Sing! You don;t actually see anything, but still...
"We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in it's flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung, the dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future too."
- Tom Stoppard, Shipwreck
Pinky
Broadway Star Joined: 3/31/04
#7re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:38amMiss Saigon....what a heart breaker!!!
Penn State Forever!!!!
Dot2
Swing Joined: 6/12/06
#8re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:45am
I've never seen it from the audience side but as a performer in "West Side Story" I found the end pretty powerful.
And though I know it's probably very cliche and will lead to my being labelled a ditzy 14-year-old, "Rent" had me bawling from "Without You" to the end the first time I saw it. "Take me...today me tomorrow you/tomorrow/you love...you love...I love you/I love you..."
Kills me.
#9re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 1:49amWest Side Story...I remember seeing it when I was eleven and bawling, and that was NOT normal for me.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#10re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 2:01amI agreee with Rent and West Side Story. Both had me sobbing when I first saw them. I'd also say Sweeney Todd. Not so much sad, but scary as hell! Oh, and Carousel.
dotmarie
Broadway Star Joined: 8/14/03
#11re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 2:02am
I gotta agree with you, Gavroche's makes me cry. 
as does Eponine's.
#12re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 2:07am
*SPOILERS GALORE*
Obviously, Molina in Spider Woman. I was so shocked the first time I saw it, it was all I could do to breathe for the next five minutes until the curtain came down. Then I sobbed for the entire trip home, and still occasionally get choked up when I remember it.
Mimi in Rent. I held myself together through everything else, but when Adam Pascal sang "I have always loved you"-- the first time in the entire show that he's said those words to her-- I lost it. Just gutwrenching. And then her resurrection a moment later made the entire emotional journey come full circle.
Leo in Parade. Anyone who's read a history book knows it's coming, but that final speech is the perfect summation to his life. He has the chance to save himself, but too much honor to take it: "I have not gone through the last two years of my life just to stand here now and tell you a baldfaced lie. That is not part of God's plan for me."
Most of the deaths in Sweeney Todd are pretty amazing, too, in one way or another.
"I hate musicals... People don't sing in real life."
"Well, maybe they should."
--Kiss of the Spider Woman (cut line)
"Well, maybe they should."
--Kiss of the Spider Woman (cut line)
sondwisenheimer
Stand-by Joined: 5/3/06
#13re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 2:11amIn "Ragtime" when Coalhouse sings "Make Them Hear You" and walks out to his death. Definitely one of the most powerful songs/scenes in a musical.
MusicAndPassion
Broadway Star Joined: 9/14/05
#14re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 6:41am
Eponine's death was powerful. Les Miserable was powerful. My best friend told me everyone dies, and I didn't expect almost everyone to die.
My favorite death song is "Javert's Suicide".
I loved the stampede in The Lion King.
As a performer, every night during the rumble in West Side Story I could nervous and excited. It was thrilling!
MusicAndPassion
Broadway Star Joined: 9/14/05
#15re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 6:41am
Eponine's death was powerful. Les Miserable was powerful. My best friend told me everyone dies, and I didn't expect almost everyone to die.
My favorite death song is "Javert's Suicide".
I loved the stampede in The Lion King.
As a performer, every night during the rumble in West Side Story I could nervous and excited. It was thrilling!
#16re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 7:29am
Eponine, Enjolras and Gavroche Valjean's death is sad in a different way.
Kim's suicide in MISS SAIGON is pretty tough, too.
Elphaba in WICKED and Mimi in RENT- their "deaths" make me smile To all those who have seen the shows and know, you know what I mean.
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
Updated On: 6/15/06 at 07:29 AM
#17re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 7:37am
Eponine and Gavroche's death...
Aida and Radames - I thought it was done so nicely
*SPOILER*
In WIW when Marian finds out her sister is dead (even though she was just switched with the woman in white, who is actually the one dead - she just broke down and was hysterical...It was the saddest thing I have ever seen!
ChrisLK
Understudy Joined: 6/7/06
#18re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 7:44am
Spoilers, but you probably already know these.
Baker's Wife in Into the Woods was a good one. But I must say, Mrs. Lovett in the current revival of Sweeney is the best death scene I've ever witnessed. And when the Beggar Woman picked up the bucket of blood I nearly lost it. I mean, it was genius.
"I could use a little...
Miracle."
~SWIWS
#19re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 8:18am
The first time I saw SWEENEY TODD (I was but a child, I'm afraid) and Sweeney pushed Mrs. Lovett into the oven, I was SHOCKED! I couldn't believe what was happening. It upset me so much.
I felt much the same when the Baker's Wife got stomped.
In the sadness department - I don't know that I have ever cried so much as when Whizzer walked away from Marvin at the very end of FALSETTOS. Sob!
TT
"Me flunk English? That's unpossible!" - Ralph Wiggum
#20re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 9:27am
A lot of my favorites have already been mentioned (Molina, Leo Frank, Enjolras, Javert, etc.) but a few other are:
-- Billy Bigelow in Carousel. It is a very moving sequence from the moment he dies after the botched robbery attempt to Julie's words to him, to the immortal song "You'll Never Walk Alone".
-- R&H had other moving or shocking death scenes in many of musicals including: The King of Siam in The King and I, Jud Fry in Oklahoma! (when Shuler Hensley played Jud I actually felt pity for him, he seemed more human), and Lt. Cable in South Pacific.
--Obviously Coalhouse's death in Ragtime is upsetting, but Sarah's death is equally as shocking.
"You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering." --Harold Hill from The Music Man
#21re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 10:00amThis is a play, but I thought all the deaths in THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE were really shocking and well done, particulary the final death of the show. I won't say who it was, as it would most likely spoil the show, but the if you've seen the show, you should know what I mean.
MARGARET: "Clara, stop that. That's illegal." - The Light in the Piazza
"I'm not in Bambi and I'm not blonde!" - Idina Menzel
"I'm not in Bambi and I'm not blonde!" - Idina Menzel
coolphantom919
Broadway Star Joined: 6/6/06
JohnBoy2
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/21/06
#23re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 10:29amA play I did called THE GOLDEN SIX, by Maxwell Anderson, has a great death scene by Augustus Caesar, who is poisoned by his wife, Liva, so that her son, Tiberius can take over the throne. Wonderful to play, because he realizes that she has poisoned him, just as he is dying; and, great to watch, I'm told.
Sant
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/12/04
#24re: Favorite Death Scene
Posted: 6/15/06 at 10:31amKing's death in THE KING AND I. Can't watch it without crying.
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