Meaningful Echoes in theatrical productions.
- In The Addams Family, Morticia finds out Gomez is keeping a secret from her. He asks to dance with her, and she replies, "Not today." Near the end of the musical, Morticia is leaving Gomez who's stuck wondering if this is the end of his marriage and their family. His decision? "Not today!"
- Similar to the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix example mentioned above, several stage versions of the musical Annie have one particular sequence that uses this trope. Early in the play, Ms. Hannigan tells Annie that her one rule is "never tell a lie". At the end, when Hannigan begs her to tell the police she's been a kind and loving orphanage matron, Annie says "Remember the one thing you always taught me: never tell a lie."
- In La Bohème, Mimì and Rodolfo quote lines from their Meet Cute while she lies on her deathbed.
- The revival of Cabaret uses several Ironic Echoes at the end, where Fraulein Schneider, Herr Schultz, Sally Bowls, and Ernst repeat earlier lines from the play that resonate even more after the Nazis have come to power.
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:Big Momma / Maggie: I love you.
Big Daddy / Brick: Wouldn't it be funny if that were true. - In Children of Eden, Father says "No more questions, daughter Eve. It's time to sleep" twice. The first time is when she's an excited child tiring herself out with curiosity. The second is when she's a grandmother about to die, worrying about the future of her children and humanity.
- "Oh Father, please don't make me choose/Either way it's more than I can bear to lose", is sung by Adam, Abel, and Noah.
- 'Father's Day' is echoed by Cain's bitter "Is this what it means to be a father...?" The first time, the tune is innocent and soothing, and the second time, it's bitter and mocking.
- Noah reprises "The Mark Of Cain": the first time, it was an epic number with the entire cast onstage, and his reprise is much more mellow but also more heartbreaking.
- Mama Noah sings part of 'The Spark Of Creation' to Noah in the second act, telling him that he 'must be the father now.'
- The tune of the titular song crops up first as Father presenting the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve, Eve saying goodbye to all her children in the first act finale, Yonah setting the dove free in the second act, and then by the cast to the audience at the very end of the play, with a different meaning each time. In case you can't tell, Children of Eden LOVES this trope.
- In Curtains, the opening scene features Randy as the Rob Hood in the Old West character Parson Tuck saying a line to the titular character after he saves the town's schoolhouse. When the scene is shown again after Lieutenant Cioffi solves the murders, restores the love of the theater in the jaded company, and takes over as Rob Hood after Bobby gets injured, Randy's line has a more profound meaning."You came to us as a stranger, rid this place of crime, and gave us a new hope in ourselves. That's gonna be one tough act to follow.
- In The Drowsy Chaperone, "As We Stumble Along" is "a rousing anthem about alcoholism", not intended to be taken seriously. The reprise is sung by a melancholy Man in the Chair, having had the finale of his show interrupted He is then joined by the characters from The Drowsy Chaperone, turning a cynical rant into a hopeful song about the future. Justified in-universe as it's his favorite song from the show and may have been able to gain some deeper meaning it than the show's writers ever intended.
- Fun Home
- The musical adaption has a somber echo in the song "Telephone Wire" from "Party Dress" As Allison semi-quotes a line that she said when she was 9 as a 43 year old woman recollecting the memory of her and her Dad's last drive before he kills himself.Young Allison in Party Dress: I Despise this dress!/ What's the matter with boy shirts and pants/This dress makes me feel like a clown,/I HATE IT!
Regular Allison in Telephone Wire: Since like, 5 I guess!/I prefer to wear boy shirts and pants!/I felt absurd in a dress!/I REALLY TRIED TO DENY MY FEELINGS FOR GIRLS! - Another instance is Between the "I Am" Song "Changing my major" and the BSoD Song "Edges of the World". In Changing My Major, Allison relishes in her sexual awakening. In Edges of the World... Bruce kills himself.Medium Allison: Am I falling into nothingness?/Or Flying into something so sublime?/I don't know.../ BUT I'M CHANGING MY MAJOR TO JOAN!
Bruce Bechdel: And I'm falling into nothingness/Or flying into something so sublime./And I'm A man I don't know./Who am I now?/Where do I go?/I can't go back... - Bruce sings "I might still break a heart or two" in both "Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue" and "Edges of the World". In "Welcome" he's singing about how even though he's a middle-aged father, he still considers himself a Lothario. In "Edges", the hearts he's going to break are those of his family, because, well...
- The musical adaption has a somber echo in the song "Telephone Wire" from "Party Dress" As Allison semi-quotes a line that she said when she was 9 as a 43 year old woman recollecting the memory of her and her Dad's last drive before he kills himself.
- Elisabeth: In the original German version, at least, both Elisabeth and Rudolf say "And so, you have abandoned me." Sisi says it after Franz Joseph takes Sophie's side and refuses to defend her, leading into her "I Am Becoming" Song "Ich gehör nur mir" (I Only Belong to Myself) and resolution to not be a helpless young girl. Rudolf says it after Elisabeth refuses to defend him to Franz Joseph, leading into his Driven to Suicide pas de deux with Death. Averted in the Japanese productions - Rudolf's line there is "That's it. There's nothing left to live for."
- Hamilton: Hamilton's death monologue is almost entirely different meaningful echoes from previous points in the musical, from him and from everyone else.
- The original version of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along had several, but in reverse due to the backwards order of events. For example, in the first act, a lovesick Mary sang a heartbreaking reprise of "Not a Day Goes By" to her unrequited love interest Frank; while in the second act, a newly-married Frank happily sang it to his then-wife, Beth.
- Les Misérables reuses melodies and motifs so very very often, and it's almost always meaningful.
- "Prologue" and "Look Down" to highlight the fact that even "free" men and women in 1832 felt they were prisoners of the state.
- "Lovely Ladies" and "Turning" are both songs sung by women who are mourning the unfairness of life both for themselves and the dead revolutionaries.
- "Who Am I" and "One Day More" for turning points in Valjean's life.
- "Valjean's Soliloquy" and "Javert's Suicide" have the titular characters' worldviews shattered by an act of unprecedented kindness; how they react is what makes the difference between the two men.
- "Fantine's Death" and "Epilogue" use the same melody, and in some places, the same words, between Fantine and Valjean; often, the only thing that's different is who's dying.
- "Do You Hear the People Sing" is given a glorious Triumphant Reprise at the end of "Epilogue", as the revolutionaries find that their worldview of freedom for all will eventually be found true in heaven.
- In My Fair Lady, when Eliza went to Henry Higgins to ask him to give her speech lessons, he said "She's so deliciously low! So horribly dirty!" To which she indignantly replied, "I washed my face and hands before I come, I did." Towards the end, when Higgins was despondently listening to a recording of that same conversation, Eliza walked in and repeated her earlier line more softly and tenderly.
- Newsies: in "Santa Fe", Jack tells Crutchie that he would never leave him behind because they're like family. In the finale, Crutchie convinces Jack to stay in New York because they're like family, and family always sticks together. And in the tour-exclusive song "Letter from the Refuge" earlier in the show, Crutchie changes his signature from "your friend" to "your best friend" to "your brother".
- RENT. The final chorus of "I'll Cover You."
- Same idea, but somewhat subverted in Roger's words to Mimi in "Another Day"- "Who do you think you are/barging in on me and my guitar"- in that he changes them when he sings to her at the end of "Finale" to "Who do you think you are/Leaving me alone with my guitar".
- Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung: In Götterdämmerung Siegfried, after being struck down by Hagen, relives (a slightly abridged reprise of) the scene from Siegfried, act 3, where he awoke Brünnhilde, although what is echoed here is the musical sequence and less the text. This foreshadows that the two will be united in death at his funeral.
- In Noah Smith's stage version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Utterson tells Jekyll in the first scene that although he's only a lawyer he does at least know enough about chemistry to "follow a recipe". The play ends with the greek chorus echoing the remark back to him as he looks thoughtfully at Jekyll's notes on how to create the serum.
- Vanities: The Musical(the off-Broadway version): "Let Life Happen", the last song of the second act, is echoed in "Setting Your Sights (What You Wanted)", the first song of the third act. "One life, and all you have to do is let it happen..." Another echo, this time of the lyric "if you don't give (your obsessive organization) up, it's gonna drive you mad", occurs in "An Organized Life (1974)": "If that's how you organize your existence, you have an organized nervous breakdown... It's what you tried to tell me way back in college..."
- Westeros: An American Musical: In "Crownless" Margaery uses the titular word to express the fact that she doesn't have a crown and would really like one. Later, in "Robb Stark", Theon must choose between supporting his father's claim to the throne and his friend Robb's. Since Theon is his father's heir, only the former option would put becoming King on Theon's horizon. Near the end of "Robb Stark", Theon is heard uttering the word "crownless" as an indicator of the side he's ultimately leaning towards.
- Wicked features Elphaba's musical repetition of "unlimited" - from her solo "Unlimited / My future is unlimited" of "The Wizard and I" to her "Unlimited / Together we're unlimited" spoken to Glinda in "Defying Gravity" to her "Unlimited / The damage is unlimited" in the full version of "No Good Deed" to her final "I'm limited / Just look at me, I'm limited" in "For Good."
- "I'm Not That Girl" being repeated, first being sung by Elphaba and saying that Galinda was 'that girl' and then sung by Glinda saying that Elphaba was 'that girl' in the second act.
- Fiyero and Elphaba's exchanges where when they tell each other they're beautiful or handsome. The first time Fiyero tells Elphaba she's beautiful after he runs away with her, and then Elphaba echoes with the same words whenhe comes back after she fakes her death, saying the same words.It's just another way of seeing things.
- "No One Mourns the Wicked" at the beginning of the musical, and then in "Finale" after the events have panned out and you know both sides more completely.
- When Elphaba first meets the Wizard, he says to her, "Everyone deserves a chance to fly," justifying his request for her to give his monkey Chistery (and by extension all of the monkeys he gathered) wings. Later in the song "Defying Gravity", Elphaba sings, "Like someone told me lately, 'Everyone deserves a chance to fly!'"
