Line #11 DrivenToSuicide/Theatre


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Theatre/MadameButterfly https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/madame_butterfly.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"Death with honor is better than life with dishonor."]]
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5	%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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8	'''As a {{Death Trope\|s}}, expect spoilers, both marked and unmarked.'''
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10	Times where somebody is DrivenToSuicide in {{Theatre}}.
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12	!!By Genre:
13	* ''Very'' prominent in Greek tragedy:
14	** In the ancient Greek play ''Theatre/{{Antigone}}'', Creon, the king of Thebes sentences Antigone to be buried alive in a cave for breaking his orders. Rather than starve to death, she hangs herself. When her fiancé, Creon's son learns that, he kills himself. When his mother, Creon's wife hears that, she kills herself. When Creon learns all that, he ''doesn't'' kill himself - he just becames very miserable.
15	** Jocasta in ''Theatre/OedipusRex'', after she finds out her husband is her son.
16	** In ''Theatre/{{Hippolytus}}'', Phaedra commits suicide after the goddess Aphrodite causes her to fall in love with her stepson, Hippolytus.
17	** Io in ''Theatre/PrometheusBound'', hearing her future wanderings, says she might as well.
18	--->'''Io''': What boots my life, then? why not cast myself\
19	Down headlong from this miserable rock,\
20	That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem\
21	My soul from sorrow? Better once to die\
22	Than day by day to suffer.
23	** Ajax, after his madness dissipates, is in such a state of dishonour that he cannot allow himself to try and reconcile with the [[UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar Greeks]] in ''Theatre/{{Ajax}}'', in spite of the pleas of his family and friends. He tricks them into thinking he is fine but then goes off to commit suicide on [[{{Irony}} Hektor's sword]].
24	** Deianira of ''Theatre/TheTrachiniae'' kills herself with a sword on her marriage bed after she realizes her agency in fatally wounding her husband, Herakles.
25	* Happens a lot in opera too:
26	** Floria Tosca of the opera ''Theatre/{{Tosca}}'' throws herself off a tower after a harrowing BreakTheCutie ordeal that ends with her being forced to accept the original ScarpiaUltimatum to keep her lover Mario Cavaradossi from being executed, killing Scarpia before he can rape her, and then finding out that he had ordered Mario's real execution instead of the false one he had promised her if she agreed to it.
27	** ''Theatre/MadameButterfly'', in its tragic [[TearJerker tearjerking]] finale, has poor Cio-Cio-San committing ''[[{{Seppuku}} jigai]]'' with the dagger given to her by the Mikado after learning that her lover Pinkerton has truly abandoned her, and has married another, and is going to take away his son, the only joy in Cio-Cio-San's life.
28	*** And the Broadway interpretation ''Theatre/MissSaigon'' does something similar, when the protagonist shoots herself both in despair over the loss of Chris and to force him to take their son Tam back to America with him.
29	** Katerina in Shostakovich's ''Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District'', having painted herself into a FailureIsTheOnlyOption corner, jumps into a frozen lake. Britten's ''Peter Grimes'' is similar.
30	** Subverted in Alban Berg's ''Lulu''. Dr Schön forces Lulu to kill herself after he finds out about her affair. She kills him instead.
31	** Averted in Mozart's ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute''. Pamina keeps the knife her mother gave her to kill Sarastro. She instead encounters Tamino, and believing he has rejected her (he's in the middle of a trial of silence so can't talk to her), Pamina wanders off in a mad stupor calling the knife her "bridegroom". The Three Spirits manage to save her in the nick of time.
32	** Magda Sorel in ''Theatre/TheConsul'', having failed after many visits to get the Secretary to give her something besides paperwork, gasses herself to death at home.
33	** Music/RichardWagner's ''Tristan und Isolde'' has Isolde requesting a Potion of Death in the first act. When she drinks it, it turns out to have been switched with the LovePotion.
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35	!!By Creator:
36	* Creator/HenrikIbsen ''loved'' this trope. He wrote suicidal characters in ''Theatre/ADollsHouse'', ''Ghosts'' (assisted suicide), ''Theatre/TheWildDuck'', ''Theatre/{{Rosmersholm}}'', and ''Theatre/HeddaGabler''. Not all of them go through with it, but for those five plays, the final tally is: 4 suicides in the text, 1 in the backstory, and possibly 2 others, depending on your character interpretation. As great a writer as he was, Ibsen really could have used a hug.
37	** ''Rosmersholm'' stands out with the highest suicide rate in any play written by Ibsen: Beate Rosmer (before the play started), Ulrik Brendel, Rosmer himself and Rebekka West - four, with two remaining cast members left alive at the very end.
38	* Creator/WilliamShakespeare:
39	** ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'':
40	*** The famous "To be, or not to be" line is from a soliloquy of the title character after he found that his uncle Claudius had killed his father Hamlet Sr. and had married his mother Gertrude, and comparing the shock to that of someone contemplating suicide.
41	*** One interpretation is that Ophelia's death really is a suicide. It's left unclear whether she accidentally fell into the lake or whether it was intentional.
42	*** Third example from ''Hamlet'' is Horatio, who attempts to die with Hamlet by drinking the remainder of the poisoned wine that killed Gertrude. Hamlet has to wrestle the chalice away from him and talk him into living. It's not the most inspiring speech, but it works.
43	** In ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'', several characters are driven to kill themselves after everything gets worse following the assassination. Namely, Portia, Brutus's wife, swallows hot coals. Cassius, after the disastrous Battle of Philippi, has a servant stab him while he covers his face, like a coward. Finally, Brutus impales himself on his own sword.
44	** In ''Theatre/KingLear'', after Gloucester is blinded, he asks someone to take him to a cliff so he can jump off. The disguised Edgar takes him up on it, but tricks him into thinking he's at a cliff when really he's on a flat plain. It can be hard to direct; after all, if not pulled off correctly, the scene can just [[IncrediblyLamePun fall flat on its face]].
45	** ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'':
46	*** Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves at the end, Romeo because he wanted to join Juliet in death (but tragically, he didn't know that Juliet was only FakingTheDead because the information that Friar Lawrence had intended for him never arrived), and Juliet because she wanted to join Romeo in death.
47	*** Some productions make Tybalt's death more or less a suicide too- his slaying of Mercutio is sometimes played as unintentional, and Tybalt is shocked enough by what he's done that he lets Romeo kill him.
48	** Most of Shakespeare's {{Tragic Hero}}es and villains qualify for this trope. Macbeth was one of the exceptions, as his death was in battle against Macduff rather than by his own hand. [[LadyMacbeth His wife]], however...
49
50	!!Other Examples:
51	* [[spoiler:Jason]] in ''Theatre/BareAPopOpera''. He's feeling so much angst about being gay, he got [[spoiler: Ivy]] pregnant, his friends have left him and when he asks Peter to run away with him, Peter refuses and says he can't hide anymore. The audience is left drowning in their own tears.
52	* In ''Theatre/TheChildrensHour'' [[spoiler:Martha]] commits suicide due to various reasons, mostly stemming from [[spoiler:heavy {{gayngst}}]]. She considers her and her best friends lives ruined because of said rumor, a rumor that occured because [[spoiler:she ''did'' have feelings for Karen]]. Karen's fiance [[spoiler:leaving her due to doubting her fidelity]] only made everything worse. Combine this extra stress and guilt with the fact she's a lesbian in TheRoaringTwenties (possibly TheThirties) and the fact she has an unrequited love and...
53	* ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'':
54	** Invoked by Roxane, when Cyrano questions her what would she do if that guy Christian is not eloquent:
55	--->'''Cyrano:''' [[BeautyEqualsGoodness All words are fair that lurk 'neath fair mustache!]]\
56	— Suppose he were a fool!...\
57	'''Roxane:''' ''(stamping her foot):'' Then bury me!
58	** Subverted by Raguenau when he discovers himself alone and ruined between acts II and III: he intents it, but is [[InterruptedSuicide saved by Cyrano]].
59	--->'''Ragueneau''': — And then, off she went, with a musketeer! Deserted and ruined too, I would make an end of all, and so hanged myself. My last breath was drawn: — [[InterruptedSuicide then in comes Monsieur de Bergerac! He cuts me down, and begs his cousin to take me for her steward]].
60	* In ''[[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc Danganronpa The Stage]]'', Monokuma adds a new rule saying that if the students manage to successfully pinpoint the blackened, then any dissenters will be [[CruelAndUnusualDeath executed]] with them. Upon finding out that [[spoiler:Mondo Owada]] is the second blackened, [[spoiler:Kiyotaka Ishimaru]] votes for himself. The implications are clear.
61	* ''Theatre/DearEvanHansen'' sees Connor Murphy killing himself offscreen not 20 minutes in. [[spoiler:Evan himself also attempted to kill himself by jumping out of a tree before the events of the musical.]]
62	%%* Four words: ''Theatre/DeathOfASalesman''.
63	* In act two of ''Theatre/{{Elisabeth}}'' and real life, [[spoiler:Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria killed himself via gunshot. This is stylized in the show as a frenetic dance with Death and the angels, though some actors choose to have Death force the gun to Rudolf's temple]].
64	* In Creator/DorothyLSayers' ''Theatre/TheEmperorConstantine'', Maximian. Or so one soldier recounts to another, who doesn't believe it -- Maximian had tried to assasinate Constantine, and Constantine only threw him in jail? Much more likely he was disposed of.
65	* ''Theatre/Frozen2018'' sees Queen Elsa nearly DrivenToSuicide by her guilt.
66	* Ajax in ''Theatre/TheGoldenApple'' jumps out a window after squandering his friends' money by unwisely investing it in hemp.
67	* In ''Theatre/GroundhogDay'', the song Hope has Phil attempting to commit suicide numerous times to escape a Main/GroundhogDayLoop.
68	* In ''Theatre/{{Heathers}}'' [[spoiler:Martha Dunnstock]] and [[spoiler:Heather [=McNamara=]]] are good examples of this, but [[spoiler:Martha's]] fails and [[spoiler:Heather's]] is interrupted.
69	* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', [[spoiler:Jasper and Agnes]] give up on returning to the Living World after their lost memories return and they realize that [[spoiler:their time in the Living World was actually worse than their time in Deadland. This gets subverted when Eurydice arrives and convinces Jasper not to give up]].
70	* In ''Theatre/JesusChristSuperstar'' Judas hanged himself shortly after betraying Jesus.
71	* This is a part of the Tin Man's backstory in ''Theatre/TheKansasCollection''. He was a man named Nick Chopper who lost his love due to the Wicked Witch of the East. Without his love, he became suicidal. He tried to kill himself but became the Tin Man instead.
72	* ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' had, like the Literature section, [[EvilCannotComprehendGood Inspector]] [[InspectorJavert Javert]] [[ItWasHisSled do this]].
73	* [[spoiler:Christine and then Orin]] in ''Mourning Becomes Electra''.
74	* S.P. Miskowski's ''my new friends (are so much better than you)'' is based on the forementioned RealLife tragedy of Megan Meier, who hanged herself after being bullied by a friend's mother masquerading as a teenage boy named Josh Evans on Website/MySpace.
75	* In ''Theatre/NatashaPierreAndTheGreatCometOf1812'', based off a section of ''War and Peace'', Natasha takes arsenic trying to kill herself after finding out that Anatole, who she planned to elope with, was already married and had never told her. After taking only a little, though, she gets scared, wakes up her cousin, and is saved by doctors.
76	* In Marsha Norman's ''Theatre/NightMother'' a woman nonchalantly tells her mother she's planning to commit suicide that night, leading to a long dialogue in which Mama tries to talk her out of it. [[spoiler:Mama is unsuccessful.]]
77	* In the backstory of ''Theatre/{{Rent}}'', Roger's girlfriend April slit her wrists after testing HIV-positive.
78	* In Act II of ''Theatre/SheLovesMe'' Mr. Maraczek attempts to shoot himself when he finds out that [[spoiler:Kodaly]] was the one having an affair with his wife, not Georg. Luckily, Arpad runs in and saves him in the nick of time, and he ends up (accidentally) shooting himself in the shoulder instead.
79	* ''The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window'': [[spoiler:After Gloria leaves her prostitution behind and returns to New York to marry Alton, only to discover that he left her because she was a prostitute, she purposely overdoses on drugs, feeling she has nothing left to live for. Sidney [[ItsAllMyFault blames himself]] for her death because he was passed out drunk in the same apartment and could’ve stopped her if he was awake.]]
80	* In both the play and film version of ''Theatre/SixDegreesOfSeparation'', [[spoiler:Rick, after realizing how he'd screwed up in letting ConMan Paul spend all of his and his girlfriend Elizabeth's savings, jumps out of the window of their apartment. Also, at the end, it's implied Paul kills himself in prison at the end, though we don't know for sure]].
81	* [[TheWoobie Moritz Stiefel]] in ''Theatre/SpringAwakening''. He's a decent, hard-working kid trying to deal with schoolwork and his parents making him feel like a total pariah at home when he doesn't get top marks, plus guilt and shame over his changing body and sexual urges. He seems to get a break when he finds out he passed the midterms. Whereupon they fail him anyway because the school can't pass everyone. He then appeals to his best friend's mother, who apparently doesn't give a poo about his angst and ignores his cry for help, and his parents - well... After that, a (female) childhood friend offers him comfort, but he's so conflicted, he refuses and she storms off, very hurt. And then the poor boy puts a pistol in his mouth. And most of the audience walk away with broken hearts.
82	* In ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'' Lucy drinks poison after she was raped by the judge. [[spoiler:However, Ms. Lovett failed to mention it was a BungledSuicide: it just made Lucy mad.]] Some productions hint that Sweeney himself is driven to this after crossing the DespairEventHorizon when he realized [[spoiler:he killed his wife]]. Take note of the concert production: the audience can see him unbutton his collar to make it easier [[spoiler:for Toby to slit his throat in a technical SuicideByCop]].
83	* Mariane in Moliere's ''Theatre/{{Tartuffe}}'' declares that she'll kill herself - with a pair of sewing scissors, no less - since her father is making her marry the eponymous JerkAss. Her maid intervenes.
84	* In ''Theatre/TheTragedyOfMan'', [[spoiler:Adam]] is on the verge of jumping off a cliff in the last scene. He is stopped when [[spoiler:Eve tells him she is pregnant]].
85	* ''Theatre/WhichWitchTheMusical'': [[spoiler:Bishop Daniel decides to die with Maria because he can't bear the thought of living without her.]]
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Context DrivenToSuicide / Theatre