Psychology/Suicide Portrayed on Broadway/Mainstream Musicals

I don't know if you'd consider this mainstream but there is a female suicide in Muriel's Wedding: The Musical.

Perhaps you'd be interested in looking at War and Peace versus The Great Comet with its portrayal of mental wellness in the character of Pierre.

In the musical, Pierre is described as a lonely, drunken old (or older) man with depressive tendencies. The novel's portrayal is more complex: Pierre has drunken himself into a lethargy and morbid obesity that have aged him beyond his fairly young years (he's a contemporary of Prince Andre and Anatole). In addition, though it's tricky to "diagnose" fictional characters, he appears to suffer from what we today would call likely paranoid schizophrenia. He is prone to delusions, paranoia and radicalism, buying into conspiracy theories, secret societies and fringe religions constantly.

The final moment of the book proper, the "first epilogue," sets up the opening of a sequel that Tolstoy never got around to writing. Pierre, who had previously believed he had been destined by God to kill the Antichrist by assassinating Napoleon, winds up sucked into extremism again when he becomes fascinated with the Decemberist Revolutionaries.

Also, Sally in Follies talks about attempted suicide

Updated On: 1/23/18 at 12:31 PM

Updated On: 1/23/18 at 01:07 PM

Groundhog Day.

Norma uses a suicide attempt to manipulate Joe at the end of Act 1 of Sunset Boulevard. I don't remember for sure about the musical, but in the movie it's made clear that she has attempted it before (either Max or Joe, it's been a while since I've watched it, comment about the lack of locks on the doors in the mansion).

raddersons said: "The recent NT revival of Follies (as well as the original book) have multiple references of Sally saying she'll kill herself if she doesn't end up with Ben. Says a lot about how manipulation can lead to the depression."

There's also lines suggesting (rather, just saying) that she had attempted suicide before. "I should have been dead all this time, I should have died the first time" something along the lines of that. Sally is probably one of the saddest characters I've seen because of how little people around her seem to understand her.

I'm surprised nobody has
mentioned Billy Bigelow
in CAROUSEL. (It's only
in the film where he falls
on his knife by accident.)

In classical works, there
are any number of famous
female suicides: Antigone,
Butterfly, Tosca, Juliet,
Ophelia (depending on
your interpretation), and
Lady MacBeth, et al.