Does This Remind You Of Anything / Theatre

• In Aida, the imprisoned Aida is alone with her captor Radames. He takes off his shirt, saying, "Do you know what's going to happen now?" Several actresses in the role play Aida as being VERY fearful that he's about to force himself on her. He instead orders her to wash his back, something that at the very least is meant to similarly degrade her, at worst, meant to symbolize a rape.
  • In the operatic source material, the main antagonist is Ramphis, a fanatical priest with political power. Verdi himself may have had anti-clerical views.
• There are parallels drawn in Angels in America between God's abandonment of Heaven and Louis' abandonment of Prior.
  Belize: Abandoned.
  Prior: Yes.
  Belize: I smell a motif. The man that got away.
  Prior: Well it occurred to me.
• Brand by Henrik Ibsen has a jarring Christmas scene involving a homeless mother and her child knocking at Brand's door, begging for clothes for her frozen child. The scene plays heavily into the legends of St. Martin and other saints, sharing their clothes with a beggar in the snow, who turns out to be Christ. It also plays in on the Christmas gospel, with the mother Mary seeking shelter and giving birth (at Christmas, of course) to Jesus himself. To drive the point home, Brand`s own son is dead, and his wife grieves over her dead son. But given the Christmas references, it is impossible not to share with the paupers. The scene makes an anvilicious Tear Jerker, because we know this is breaking Agnes completely.
• Elisabeth: "Die Schatten werden länger" ("The Shadows Grow Longer") is about Death trying to seduce Rudolf into suicide. In many, many productions, it's played as Death trying to seduce Rudolf.
• In Finian's Rainbow, when Finian learns Og the leprechaun came to America without a passport, he threatens to have him deported. As Og starts to flee, Finian accuses him: "You're a member of a subversive underground group takin' its orders from Dublin!"
• The musical Hamilton, which tells the life of the first US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a style infused by hip-hop and R&B songs, came about when writer-star Lin-Manuel Miranda realised that the story of Hamilton's life was in many ways similar to the classic hip-hop Anti-Hero narrative. Both are about a young man from an impoverished and socially unrespectable background clawing himself up from the gutter to a position of power in an atmosphere of revolutionary violence, only to make many enemies along the way which eventually leads to his violent downfall.
• In Into the Woods, the song "Hello, Little Girl" is theoretically about the Big Bad Wolf trying to eat Little Red Riding Hood, but it's dripping in sexual innuendo. The later song "I Know Things Now" all but drops the pretense, being straightforwardly about her loss of innocence as a result of the encounter.
• Comedy duo James and Jamesy have a moment if this where one character attempting to click on his headlamp looks... like something, both actors struggle to keep straight faces, near in mind the show is G rated.
• In The King and I, Tuptim's in-universe adaptation of The Small House of Uncle Thomas is a thinly-veiled criticism for her slavery and her separation from her lover. In the middle of the play she goes too far into an Author Filibuster and dispenses with all subtleties.
• In The Pajama Game, when Sid is trying to con Gladys out of the key to the account books (which is dangling around her neck), the dialogue makes it sound as if he's asking for the key to her chastity belt ("I'm a desperate man, and I hate to ask a cute kid like you to do me a favor, but...").
• In The Phantom of the Opera (and the movie made from it), "The Music of the Night" could be seen as an attempted seduction. The lyrics are highly-suggestive euphemisms (The Phantom is singing about his music and the darkness/night, but could just as easily be substituted for sex). Christine faints towards the end of the song, so ultimately nothing happens.
• The death scene in Romeo and Juliet is rife with sexual imagery. The bit where Juliet welcomes being penetrated by Romeo's dagger is still pretty clear to modern audiences, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. The cup that Romeo drinks his poison from is supposed to be a symbol of femininity, and furthermore, Shakespeare often used "die" as a euphemism for "orgasm".
• In the Shrek musical adaptation, Pinocchio shouts "I'm good, I'm wood, get used to it!" during a song titled "Freak Flag" which rallies the Fairy Tales creatures against Farquaad. Already sounding more like a song for a gay pride parade than a theme for any Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
• In The Spongebob Musical, Plankton and Karen sound like a couple having relationship troubles (more specifically in the bedroom), with the way Plankton complains "You used to love my evil schemes!" and her reply "Well what can I say? The magic's gone."
• In Thrill Me, "Roadster" is honestly about child murder, and not anything sexual. And if you can find a show that can say, "Feel the power of my engine," without making it about sex, you have an incredibly skilled performer.
• Westeros: An American Musical: The play retells A Song of Ice and Fire with parodies of songs from Hamilton. The choice of music can sometimes draw a parallel between an event from A Song of Ice and Fire and a scene from Hamilton:
  • "King Robert Baratheon", which is about how Robert started out a rebellious teen and became King, is set to the tune of "Alexander Hamilton", which tells the story of a poor orphan managing to better his situation into becoming a historical figure.
  • "Hand of the King" is set to "Right Hand Man". Both songs happen during a war and involve the protagonist being given an important position they weren't expecting by a father or father figure who's a prominent military leader.
  • "Shae No To This" is about Tyrion's Secret Relationship with Shae, and at some point has a minstrel try to extort money from Tyrion to keep his mouth shut about it. Its original, "Say No To This", is about Hamilton having an affair with a married woman and includes her husband asking for money in exchange for his silence.
  • "Growing Concerned" focuses on a group of characters conspiring to get another out of their way, much like its original, "Washington on Your Side".
  • Both of the songs sung by Daenerys were originally sung by King George III, who is also an antagonist separated from the protagonists by a large body of water, and has nothing to do plot-wise.
• Wicked: "What Is This Feeling?" begins with this lyric: "What is this feeling so sudden and new? I felt the moment I laid eyes on you. My pulse is rushing. My head is reeling. My face is flushing. What is this feeling? Fervid as a flame? Does it have a name? Yes. Loathing. Unadulterated loathing". Sorry darlings, but that isn't loathing; it's lust. Then again, they have been confirmed to have romantic interest in each other, and Stephen Schwartz (composer) did this intentionally to highlight the irony of using common phrases from love songs in a song about hate instead.