< Tear Jerker

Tear Jerker/Theater

Thy hand, Belinda; darkness shades me / On thy bosom let me rest;
More I would, but Death invades me / Death is now a welcome guest.
When I am laid in earth, / May my wrongs create no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me! but ah! forget my fate.

There's something about live theater. Something about being in the same room as the actors, breathing that same air, feeling the vibrations when they fall. Actors are charged when standing before an audience, and stage actors arguably put more into their craft - more time, more stamina, more physical exertion - than your standard TV or film actor.

This pays off.

With the right cast, with a receptive audience, with beautiful words and maybe the perfect music, death, separation, and injustice on stage can break the heart unlike any other medium. Ready yourself for spoilers.

Bare: A Pop Opera

  • Bare: A Pop Opera: All of it?
    • The song Bare. The tune is so pretty and the lyrics are heart-wrenching. Best example: if prayer were the answer, I'd fall on my knees. That just...wow. Worth a listen.
    • Peter's emotional explosion in 'Promise'.
    • Even the happy songs in the show anymore, with the knowledge of Jason's death and the way and reason he dies. Some especially bittersweet lyrics are found in the title song, Bare. "Please understand that I tried/ It's not goodbye." It is goodbye.


  • La Boheme!
  • The abrupt Mood Whiplash in the final act, culminating in loss and despair was just...ouch.
  • Its loose adaptation, Rent, however, is an example of an ending that aims to be a Tear Jerker but ends up more as Glurge. (Though not for everybody.)
  • When Angel died. That IS the tearjerker, without a doubt.
    • A more specific point - "When your heart has expired" in the Dark Reprise of "I'll Cover You". Dare you not to cry.
  • Just thinking about the song Without You.
  • The film's ending is glurge-y because it cranks the sentimentality Up to Eleven and gives us boring visuals. But if you're listening to the Original Broadway Cast recording..
  • Also the repeating chorus song, "Will I?" being sung by an AIDS support group, slowly joined by the main cast. "Will I lose my dignity?/Will someone care?/Will I wake tomorrow/from this nightmare?"
    • The worst part? The support group members are all named after Jonathan Larson's friends who died from AIDS.
  • "Life Support" strikes a chord: "Look, I find some of what you teach suspect/Because I'm used to relying on intellect/But I try to open up to what I don't know/Because reason says I should have died three years ago." And then everyone joins in with the Life Support mantra.
  • 'Halloween'. Why am I the witness!? And when I capture it on film... will it mean that it's the end, and I'm alone...? -sniff-
  • Mark and Roger's fight.

Mark: Maybe you'll see why when you stop escaping your pain! At least now if you try, Angel's death won't be in vain!
Roger: His death IS in vain!

  • When Roger accuses Mark of hiding behind his camera and Mark retorts "Perhaps it's because I'm the one of us to survive!" To hear him finally confess to his best friend how terrified he is of watching him die, especially in the middle of an argument, is just heartbreaking.


Godspell

  • Godspell. "On the Willows".
  • The Finale and "Long live God".
    • How about the song just preceding, when Jesus was dying and singing "Oh God, I'm bleeding..." (I assume this isn't a spoiler, most people know Jesus dies, right?)
    • That is the finale.
  • The music in "On the Willows" wasn't nearly as bad as the action: Jesus slowly goes around to each disciple and says a silent goodbye, and though they don't understand what's going to happen they instinctively know that it's something bad. A few minutes earlier during "By My Side": the song had Jesus sitting on the floor and the soloists standing around him (which is a switch from the rest of the show) and by the end all of the disciples (except Judas) were gathered around him, holding his hands and singing to him, and he just looked so surprised and touched that they would be singing this sweet song for him, like he never expected to actually be one of them but he truly belongs now. It's made so much worse because you know that he knows what's coming.
  • God, "By My Side" is heartbreaking. Virtually every version of Godspell is completely different. Most of the script is kept faithful to the original production, but the staging, costumes, and ad-libs are up to the individual production. The actress doing the mezzo half of the solo - the "adulteress" from the previous parable - would walk up to Jesus on the line "I will take him from my shoe, singing 'meet your new road'" and give him back the flower he'd conjured for her during "All for the Best" and kissing him on the cheek.
  • When the whole cast was screaming at Judas as he tied Jesus up and dragged him to the cross, Judas looked as though he was about to break down himself.


The History Boys

  • So many, many moments.
  • Hector's breakdown in the classroom.

What made me piss my life away in this godforsaken place? There's nothing of me left.

  • Hector's funeral.
  • The epilogue's reveal of Posner's future.


Into The Woods

  • Into the Woods: First there's "The Witch's Lament" when Rapunzel gets crushed by the Giantess:

"Children can only grow/ from something you love/ to something you lose...."

  • And then there's "No One Is Alone", where the characters realize they're not in a fairy tale anymore:

"Giants can be good. Witches can be right. You decide what's good. You decide what's right. Someone is on your side/ someone else is not/ While we're seeing our side/ maybe we forgot: They are not alone. No one is alone."

  • And the finale, especially the Witch's reprise of "Children Will Listen":

"Careful the things you say / Children will listen / Careful the things you do / Children will see, and learn / Children may not obey / But children will listen / Children will look to you / for which way to turn..."

  • The Baker, repeating The Narrator's opening words, say "With his wife."
  • The Mysterious Man kissing the Baker on the head before he vanishes near the end of No More.
  • When the Baker's Wife comes out to reprise "No One Is Alone".
  • Another song by the Witch: "Stay With Me." She sings said song when she finally catches up to Rapunzel after she learns that she had spoken with one of the princes.
  • The Witch's quiet, heartbroken delivery of the line "You are ashamed of me!".
  • "Maybe I just wasn't meant to have children." "Don't say that; of course you were meant to have children." Rips my heart out every time.
  • "Who out there could love you more than I? What's out there that I cannot supply?", since in many performances, the Witch sounds so heartbroken.


Jesus Christ Superstar

  • Large sections of Jesus Christ Superstar are absolutely heartwrenching in the right hands. Among them: "Could We Start Again, Please?" the Last Supper scene, Judas' suicide, and one of the most incredible solos in music theater history, "Gethsemane."
  • I'm convinced that if you're a Spanish speaker and do NOT cry with Camilo Sesto's rendition of "Gethsemane", you should search for your lost soul. Kills me EVERY time, even almost 30 years after Camilo played Jesus.
  • Almost any good cast will put some real feeling and friendship into the Jesus-Judas relationship; when you realise that Judas was a pawn in a desperate gamble by the Jewish authorities; a guy who didn't want to have his friend killed and just wanted everything to be the way it was back when they were quiet and safe... and then you realise that he's been demonised by everyone ever since. It might not be in the canon, but it SHOULD BE!
  • John 19:41. Jesus Christ is dead. The end.


Kristina fran Duvemala

  • The musical "Kristina from Duvemala", telling the story of a family emigrating from Sweden to the US in the mid 19th century, is filled with tearjerker moments. One of the worst for me is during the song "Bright Evenings in Springtime" when Kristina sings of how homesick she is, and of the pain of never getting to see your parents again, or the place where you grew up.
  • Another obvious tearjerker is the song "Stay" during the first act, where Karl Oskar sits by his pregnant wife's side during a stormy night on the journey across the Atlantic, begging her to stay with him when she is sick of scurvy and bleeds from every orifice.
  • The moment when their poverty leads to the death of their oldest child.
  • And "The Gold Turned Into Sand".
  • Another truly heartbreaking moment is during the song "You Have To Be There".
  • And in the end when Kristina dies in Karl Oskar's arms.
  • "I will... be waiting... there."


The Last Five Years

  • "Still Hurting" from The Last Five Years, probably the ultimate breakup song.
  • Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You. Even though you already know everything that has happened at this point, the juxtaposition of Cathy's excitement and Jamie's miserable resignation is just HEARTBREAKING.
  • Also, there's a line that, once the Fridge Brilliance kicks in, is almost just as heartbreaking. During the wedding song, Cathy and Jamie sing about being together "Till there's no one left / Who has ever known us apart". During the show, because of the way the two timelines work, they are only actually together onstage twice - during their wedding and at the ending of the show when their timelines finally seperate. And that reflects how they were never emotionally together in the first place... :(
  • "Nobody Needs to Know". It's the regret Jamie feels, and the Dark Reprise of "I could be in love with someone like you". Damn Norbert Leo Butz and the break in his voice as he does the line "All right, everyone bleeds! All right, I get what I need!".
  • "See I'm Smiling" and the way Cathy tries so hard to be what Jamie wants and not rock the boat. Followed by her epic breakdown when she just unloads everything that's wrong with their relationship.
  • Another heart-shattering instance of (a doubled layering of) terrible, terrible Fridge Brilliance causing a Tear Jerker is more subtle - in "See I'm Smiling", in the middle of her rant to Jaime, Cathy sings the following:

Cathy: "And the point is, Jamie,/that you can't spend a single day that's not about/you and you and nothing but you,/"Mahvelous" novelist, you!/Isn't he wonderful? Just twenty-eight!/The savior of writing!/You, and you, and nothing but you!/Miles and piles of you!/Pushing through windows and bursting through walls/En route to the sky!/And I..."

  • Then, during her penultimate song to Jamie, "I Can Do Better Than That" (which is chronologically taking place at the very beginning of their relationship, but is at the end of the show, after the previous "you and you and nothing but you"), she sings the following:

Cathy: "I want you and you and nothing but you/Miles and piles of you/Finally I'll have something worthwhile/To think about each morning/You and you and nothing but you/No substitution will do/Nothing but fresh, undiluted and pure/Top of the line and totally mine!"

  • She also mentions how disappointed she was that her last boyfriend left her with nothing but a "heartfelt letter". The fact that Cathy's pure, unadulterated love for Jamie has been so twisted by the end of their relationship and that she sees none of it coming is heartbreaking enough, but what's worse is that Jamie's final song, "I Could Never Rescue You", is him writing a 'heartfelt' (whether this is true is debatable) letter to inform Cathy that he is leaving her after 5 years of being together. Poor, poor Cathy. * sob*


Les Misérables

  • The instrumental version of "Bring Him Home", where the revolving platform barricade rotates to show all the dead students . . . and then Enjolras on the other side, body draped over the French flag.
    • And Gavroche. Dear God in Heaven, Gavroche...* sob*
    • The "Little People" reprise with Gavroche SCREAMING IN PAIN as he's singing on the Complete Symphonic Recording
  • "On My Own."
  • And its musical partner, "And tell Cosette I love her - and I'll see her when I wake..."
  • Three words: "Little Fall of Rain"
    • "You would live a hundred years if I could show you how..."
  • And four more: "My friends, my friends..."
    • "here they sang about tomorrow... and tomorrow, never came..." ...* sob*
    • This song is often performed as a tribute to AIDS victims. Which makes it even more wrenching.
    • When the ghosts of Enjolras and the other students come out to stand around Marius as he sings "Oh my friends, my friends, forgive me...", and when they leave and Enjolras gives Marius (and the audience) one last look before departing.
  • A musical review that included "Do you hear the people sing" combined with barricades splitting apart to show people marching up from a bottom-lit, fog-enshrouded trap door. Beautiful.
  • "To love another person is to see the face of God." * sniff*
  • The soundtrack brings tears.
  • "Did you see them lying where they died? Someone used to cradle them and kiss them when they cried. Did you see them lying side by side?"
  • "Yes, Cosette, forbid me now to die...I'll obey...I will try..."
  • Gavroche's death. The Finale was also particularly emotional.
  • "My place is here. I fight with you!" "ONE DAY MORE!" The musical beauty of that moment gets me every time.
  • Apart from being my favourite musical, it is the only one that makes me cry by the end, every. damn. time. Especially the line after to love another person is to see the face of God.

Do you hear the people sing? Lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the Earth, there is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

  • It sums up the production
  • "Now life has killed the dream...I dreamed" * sob*
  • Javert's death. It's the Ironic Echo and Dark Reprise parts that do it.
    • "The world that I have known is lost in shadow..."
  • The French version of "Castle on a Cloud", (called "Mon Prince est en Chemin", "My Prince is on His Way"). The tune is the same, but the lyrics are twenty times sadder. Leave it to the French to come up with:

Tous les enfants ont une enfance (All children have a childhood)
une famille et des jouets (a family and toys)
c'est tout ou rien, chance ou bien malchance (it's all or nothing, good luck or bad)
je n'ai ni père, ni mère, ni poupée (I've got neither father, mother, nor a doll)


The Lion King

  • Although a great deal of The Lion King is deeply emotional and affecting (as is the film it was based on), one particular addition not in the movie always brings this editor to tears: the solo number performed by Simba, "Endless Night." In particular the lines: "You promised you'd be there/Whenever I needed you/Whenever I call your name/You're not anywhere/I'm trying to hold on/Just waiting to hear your voice/One word, just a word will do/To end this nightmare." Also, the earlier lines "Sleepless, I dream of the day/When you were by my side/Guiding my path/Father, I can't find the way." By the time the end of the song comes, when Simba sings such a stirring, heartfelt testimonial to hope for the future, I'm always bawling. This may perhaps be influenced by the lack of any real father in my life, but still...
  • This is especially tear jerking when you realize that the original actor in this role hung himself because he couldn't sort out the differences he had with his father.
  • Rafiki Mourns.
  • "Shadowland."
  • Mufasa's death.


Madame Butterfly/Miss Saigon

  • Miss Saigon might just be worse than Madame Butterfly, considering it's partly set during the Vietnam War.
  • "Bui Doi", which opens the second act, is a total tearjerker. John singing "Now I know I'm caught/ I'll never leave Vietnam" is a punch to the gut, but when he practically sobs out "But then I saw a camp for children/Whose crime was being born" the tears start pouring.
    • In the original production, this song was accompanied by a slide show featuring pictures of the mixed-race children John was advocating. Don't know if the pictures are of actual Vietnam War babies or if they were staged...either way, it was damned effective.
    • A minute-and-a-half version of it. It's that powerful.
  • "The Fall of Saigon" is probably the most emotionally punishing scene in the entire show. When the helicopter takes off and you hear the crowds at the gate screaming in despair, it just rips out your heart.
  • So does Chris' agonized scream of "KIM!" as he makes one final, desperate attempt to find her before being dragged onto the helicopter and forced to leave.
  • "I Still Believe", where in stark contrast to their previous scene (embracing on the balcony of her room), we see a despairing Kim alone in a hovel, praying for Chris to come back to her, while simultaneously seeing him thousands of miles away. . .in bed with his new wife. Even worse, his wife is also in despair (he wakes up every night, screaming Kim's name, and she's unable to help him through his trauma because he won't confide in her).
  • "Room 317" Kim rushes to Chris' hotel room, thrilled at the prospect of FINALLY reuniting with him . . . only to meet his wife. Every actress I've seen in the role plays this scene perfectly—Kim's body sags, her arms go limp, and she stands as if frozen to the spot.
  • The ending.


Man of La Mancha

  • Quite a few bits in Man of La Mancha, particularly when Alonso Quijana dies. The fact that he dies in a state of euphoria doesn't help matters.
  • The sum total of the last two scenes, from Aldonza's rendition of "The Impossible Dream," when Quixote remembers who he is and stands triumphantly, to Quijana's death, to Cervantes walking toward the Inquisition while everyone else sings the reprise ... sobbing. Like a little girl.
  • "What Do You Want of Me?" and "The Impossible Dream."

This is my quest, to follow that star!
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far...

  • "The Impossible Dream".


Next to Normal

  • Next to Normal - More than half the damn show.
    • "I Dreamed a Dance"
    • "A Light in the Dark"
    • "How Could I Ever Forget?"

"A moment of dread... someone simply said, your child is...."

    • "A Promise", especially to those of us who appreciate the nod to Nice Guys
    • "Maybe (Next To Normal)"
    • the reprise of "Perfect For You"
    • "So Anyway" gets a special mention
    • the reprise of "I Am The One"

Dan: "Gabe. Gabriel." Gabe: "Hi, Dad." (cue waterworks)

    • "Didn't I See This Movie?"
    • "Wish I Were Here"
    • "Everything Else" is particularly heartwrenching. You can hear the desperation and borderline hysteria in Natalie's voice as she sings. The tears begin to creep up at

You play 'til it's perfect,
You play 'til you ache,
You play 'til the strings or your fingernails break.

    • The whole damn show makes me cry.
    • The whole show is one big huge tearjerker.


Shakespeare

Hamlet

  • The ending of Hamlet.

'Hamlet': The rest is silence.

  • A version that incorporated American Sign Language into the production worked amazingly well, surprisingly. As Hamlet is dying, he speaks most of the above line in a voice so faltering that it was almost inaudible, then, apparently unable to speak another word, signs "silence" and dies. Since the sign for "silence" is a sweeping gesture with both hands from the mouth away, it felt like a visual representation of his soul leaving his body.
  • One version played Hamlet as The Stoic around all others; even the scene with Gertrude was done in an almost blank, unnerving near-monotone. Then when Horatio goes for the goblet, Hamlet gets hold of it and says "As thou'rt a man, give me the cup." Horatio does not. Hamlet's control wavers as he demands "Let go!" and yet Horatio fights for the poisoned chalice. The next sentence is startlingly anguished, so much so that Horatio releases the cup on reflex and Hamlet flings it away, proceeding to give his last sets of lines with an overwhelming emotion that seems to have been bottled up throughout the entire play. It could easily have gone over-the-top, but somehow it worked.
  • One Hamlet played the title character as highly emotional, almost Hot-Blooded, and Horatio as, essentially, his Morality Chain about one step away from Cooldown Hugs. So watching Horatio completely lose it at Hamlet's death and desperately try to drink from the goblet was heartwrenching.
  • The 2008 RSC version is even worse about this—rather than an epic, tragic moment, the end is filmed very intimately between Hamlet and Horatio. After Hamlet's death, Horatio, in tears, delivers his famous line, kisses him on the forehead, and gently rocks his body. And that's where they end it.

Henry IV

  • The opening scene of Henry IV. Northumberland's reaction to his son's death is a heartbreaker.
    • Henry IV's death scene, and then again when the newly crowned Henry V tells Falstaff that "I know thee not, old man."
  • Prince Hal's eulogy for Hotspur in Henry IV Part 1.

Henry V

  • The Chorus's closing monologue is terribly sad. Sort of an historical/FridgeHorror, but what he's describing is Henry V's early death, his son Henry VI's inability to rule, and the beginning of one of the most bloody periods of the Wars of the Roses.

The Chorus: Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned king
Of France and England, did this king succeed,
Whose state so many had the managing
That they lost France and made his England bleed...

Henry VI

  • Shakespeare's Henry VI plays have, perhaps surprisingly, a lot of them—the ones that stand out for are the death of Sir John Talbot and his son in part 1 and the scene in part 3 where King Henry meets two unnamed soldiers on the battlefield—one who has unknowingly killed his father, and another who has unknowingly killed his son. (Really, though, anything Henry says in part 3 is a Tear Jerker.) Even Queen Margaret gets one when her son is killed right in front of her.

King Lear

  • The Kill'Em All ending of King Lear was such a ridiculous Tear Jerker for its earliest audiences that a different, happier ending was created for productions in later centuries, one that lasted until the 1900s. It wasn't until after World War II that the original ending was performed again, and once again the tears began to flow.
  • Also, this (slightly earlier) exchange:

Lear:If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.
Cordelia: No cause, no cause.

  • Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all?
  • I have a journey, sir, shortly to go. My master calls me; I must not say no.
  • Sir Ian McKellen as Lear, every time he's onstage from the storm scene on.
  • After the ending, the few characters that were still alive began to "raise" the rest from the dead, touching them one by one, ending with Regan and Goneril who went to Lear, and Lear who went to Cordelia.
  • Lear's breakdown before Act III, when Lear discovers his daughter's conspiring against him. Especially when King Lear tells them "even beggars have things they don't need".

Macbeth

  • Lady Macbeth has killed herself, Macbeth's people have abandoned him, he is considered a tyrant, and he is forced to kill many soldiers during a battle, and through these actions, he realizes how pointless it was. He becomes disillusioned with the idea of working so hard and betraying so many to become a king that no one respects, only to die some day, rendering all his efforts meaningless and going to his grave unwept and unsung.

Othello and Otello

  • "Niun mi tema" from Otello.
  • The ending of Othello when Iago's wife comes in and tells Othello what really just happened. Say what you want about the play, that breaks the heart.
    • That scene is heartrending for everyone involved. Watching Emilia gradually realise that a) her friend is dead, b) Othello killed her, c) her own husband persuaded him to do so, and d) oh, and it's sort of her own fault too... breaks my heart every time.

Richard II

  • Richard the Second (aka, Proof Positive that You Don't Read the Good Shakespearean Plays in High School English Class); specifically, any lines spoken by John of Gaunt, anything said by Richard after he learns of Bolingbroke's invasion (when you realize that his entire world has been overturned and he just. doesn't. know. what. to do. anymore.), and especially Mowbray's exile speech:

Mowbray: A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege
And all unlooked for from your highness' mouth.
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserv'd at your highness' hands.
The language I have learned these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo;
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstring'd viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my jailer to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now.
What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
That robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

    • And the scene where the stable-groom visits Richard in prison.

Romeo and Juliet

  • Let's face it, the whole thing.
  • This is not a story of two in-love youths made victims of a petty rivalry, but a story about a couple of kids throwing away their lives because of imagined feuds. So many wasted years...
  • The French musical adaptation, particularly Roméo's song before his death:

It's over, I'm done
I wanted to know about life, now I know
I am so tired
I don't want anything but
To simply lie down, and take her hand
Put it on my heart, forget my pain

  • And Benvolio's song about having to tell Roméo about Juliette's death:

Yesterday, we were still
So far, so far from death
She's fallen on the village
Like a spider spinning her web.

The Tempest

  • The final scene of The Tempest, where Prospero relinquishes his magic and frees Ariel.

'Prospero: ...I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

  • A production where a female Ariel spends the play in a visible harness, 'flying' on wires around the stage. When Prospero frees her, he unlocks her harness and instead of flying, she finally gets to RUN around the stage in sheer joy. So many tears.
  • It is made even more powerful by the fact that Shakespeare was himself speaking through Prospero. The Tempest was the Bard's last play.
  • His last good play; "Henry VIII" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen" followed. Nitpicks aside, The Tempest also contains the great speech beginning "These revels now are ended...".

The Winter's Tale

  • The Winter's Tale. Specifically, in Act III when Leontes learns not only that his wife Hermione was innocent of adultery but that his insane jealousy has cost her life and that of their young son. Also, Paulina's bold, toe-curling lambastement of the grieving Leontes.
  • And the scene at the end when the 'statue' of Hermione comes to life -- happy tears, in that case, but still!


Spring Awakening

  • "Those You've Known," "Left Behind," "And Then There Were None," and "Whispering" from Spring Awakening
    • Moritz's monologue after "Don't Do Sadness".

"So, what will I say? I'll tell them all - the angels - I got drunk in the snow, and sang, and played pirates... Yes, I'll tell them, I'm ready now. I'll be an angel."

    • "There are those who still know, they're still home. We're still home..."
    • "You watch me. Just watch me. I'm calling, I'm calling. And one day all will know..."
    • The German and English versions of "The Dark I Know Well".
    • In the original play
      • The Masked Man last words to the protagonists, "To you [Melchior] the doubt about everything, to you [Moritz's ghost] the certainty about nothing."
      • Although Moritz already brought his eternal inevitability, Melchiorr gives Moritz some meaning in Moritz's life after all. Melchior tells him "no matter if my personality was to change a hundred times, you will probably be [my closest friend]" Melchior walks off with the Stranger leaving Moritz behind. Moritz is saddened to rest in eternal rot but realizes that he can rest, straighten his grave with dignity, and sleep with a smile on his face.


Sweeney Todd

  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has a very, very bad ending. While it's cathartic, that doesn't mean it isn't tearful.
  • The quartet version of "Johanna", even with all the (fairly funny) murders: "And though I'll think of you, I guess, until the day I die/I think I miss you less and less as every day goes by." A song about how a character's sadness is fading should not be such a tearjerker, except that his humanity is fading with it. Oh God, Sweeney...
  • There's something about watching Neil Patrick Harris as Toby going quite mad
    • George Hearn is not helping in that scene, especially when he lifts his head and rips his collar open. He knows what's coming...and he no longer cares. Sob...
    • And that assumes you can get through his "Not While I'm Around" without breaking down.
  • Mrs. Lovett frantically trying to save face when Sweeney finds out his wife was still alive and then finally giving up and admitting she lied because she loves him. In one production, the actress playing Lovett was, in fact, in tears and her voice cracked on the line "Could that thing have cared for you like me?"


Tanz der Vampire

  • Tanz der Vampire has at least a few of these-- "St �rker Als Wir Sind".
  • But the lyrics are so strong and hopeful in the face of darkness! And Sarah's part is soaring and happy! Now, Rebecca reacting to Chagal's death with a slow, sad reprise of his theme tune? That's a tear jerker right there, especially when you consider it's the last we see of Rebecca, who up until then has been a minor comic role. Almost everyone else in the play gets something at least roughly approximating a happy ending, and Rebecca exits three quarters through the first act sobbing and alone.
  • Unstillbare Gier.


West Side Story

  • West Side Story. The death at the end combines the music of "Somewhere, there's a place for us, somehow, someday, somewhere," and Maria's rhapsodic affirmation of her love: "I have a love, and it's all that I have."
  • "One Hand, One Heart". Make of our lives one life/Day after day, one life./Now it begins, now we start/One hand, one heart,/Even death won't part us now.


Other

  • As the final act of a collection of Poe stories being performed, there was a ballet duet to piano music playing over a recital of the poem "Annabel Lee."
  • The Light in the Piazza. All the way through.
    • The Act I finale "Say It Somehow" when Margaret runs in on Clara and Fabrizio, and the end of "Fable" when Margaret joins the wedding ceremony and the final chord sounds. It echoes through the theatre.
    • "Something is terribly wrong..."
    • The Dark Reprise of The Beauty Is kills me every time. Although Margaret reveals that Clara's innocence is the result of brain damage from when she was kicked by a pony at her 12th birthday party in Act One, it is not until this number, when Margaret retells the story, that we find out that Margaret holds herself responsible because she turned away to answer the phone. Just the Ironic Echo of "I thought if I had a child, I would take such care of her" and the way the lyric just cuts out at the end... I get the shivers just writing it.
    • Franca's response to Clara's outburst in the Octet, especially because you know she knows that Giuseppe would not do the same for her.
  • Blood Brothers
    • The first song, 'Marilyn Monroe', and there's always that reprise that makes it 50 times worse.
  • The ending of The Yeomen of the Guard.
    • A recording of that show with the legendary Joel Grey as Jack Point. The sight of him struggling, lost and heartbroken, through "I have a song to sing, O!" is heartbreaking.
  • The trio of songs from the musical Titanic: "To the Lifeboats", "We'll Meet Tomorrow" and "Still", thought the whole shows is subject to Foregone Conclusion.
    • An audience member said that she was holding together quite well until Thayer "Told his small child to get into the lifeboat and that he'll see his father in the morning. And then the kid believes him."
    • When Alice Beane (the second class passenger who always wanted more) told her (somewhat) henpecked husband she loved him for the first time in the entire play, and then she bursts into tears, not wanting to leave him.
    • Also, Barrett's reprise of "The Proposal during "To the Lifeboats"
  • Surprisingly, there's one in Mamma Mia. "Slipping Through My Fingers."
  • "Vesti la giubba", from Pagliacci, sung by Canio, a cuckolded tragic clown.
  • La Traviata. At first, it looks as if it's just going to have a tragic ending, with the main character hoping to the last that her lover will return to her- in vain because she is dying of TB. They twist the knife by having the lover return (improbably), just in time for the character to die after a happy reunion scene.
  • Aeeing Michael Ingersoll singing Why during a production of Tick, Tick, Boom. Those three minutes blew Rent out of the water, now and forevermore.
    • "Why" - when Raul Esparza played Jonathan in the run that coincided with the tenth anniversary of Jonathan Larson's death.
    • Louder than Words; it's just so profoundly beautiful and relevant.
  • Those heart-wrenching ballads in some cookie cutter musicals. Like the surprisingly moving duet "If I Told You" from the musical of The Wedding Singer
  • A lot of songs from Fiddler on the Roof tug at the heartstings. Probably one of the most infamous examples is "Sunrise, Sunset". And when done right, "Sabbath Prayer" also has a very powerful feeling to it-you'll cry and you won't know why. "Far From the Home I Love" is heartbreaking, as well as the lines immediately after:

HODEL: God only knows when we shall see each other again.
TEVYE: Then we shall leave it in His hands.

    • And the song Tevye sings about Chava, and his heartbreak, and her heartbreak. That song is so hard to hear.
  • Mary's death in the musical version of Reefer Madness. Especially the Dark Reprise of "Romeo and Juliet".
    • Goddamn it, yes. It's Reefer Madness, for God's sake, it shouldn't make you cry like a little girl. But it does. Somehow.
  • Wit.
    • Yes. The main character's death at the end (which is not a spoiler since she's diagnosed with terminal cancer in the very beginning) is an intensely powerful moment, also the scene where her former mentor visits her in the hospital and reads to her from a children's book. For most of the play, this proud, tough woman has been progresively stripped of her dignity by her illness and the treatment of her illness, and because she's led such a solitary life, there's been no one to comfort her... until that moment.
    • And death shall be no more, comma, death, thou shalt die..."
  • When Grizabella sings Memory in Cats. Although the whole "rising to a higher plane" symbolism staging helps.
    • The last reprise of the song is very emotional. Also, the 'Gus the Theater Cat' number in the movie version is very emotional when Gus attempts to repeat his last lines and can't because it makes him so emotional. It's made even more sad by the fact that the man who played Gus, Sir John Mills, is now dead.
      • Oh, yeah. That's three-hanky moment, in part because it would be so easy to mock him, but the other cats are so caring of him, and in part because of Sir John's performance.
  • Little Shop of Horrors. Somewhere That's Green Reprise. WAAAH.
  • Several years ago this humble contributor found himself choking up something awful during Sanders Family Christmas, a piece about a 1940s American family of gospel singers: in one number, the mother sings a prayer for her son's safety as he prepares to head off to war.
  • In Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, after sitting through almost two hours detailing the lives and passions of the men and women who have tried, or succeeded, in killing various American Presidents we are presented with the amazingly Tear Jerker song, "Something Just Broke", with Americans from every era trying to come to terms with the tragedy of an assassination, which comes right after watching Lee Harvey Oswald take his shot...
    • "Something Just Broke."
  • The long opening sequence of Evita ("Requiem for Evita"). I've seen it onstage in two different productions, and also the film version (which just makes it worse by intercutting it with a flashback to the funeral of Eva's father), and never failed to weep a bit. Particularly impressive since Eva/Evita can be seen as almost a Villain Protagonist - it just wasn't that way to the people who loved her.
    • The last quarter of the show. Combination sad music + sad lyrics.
  • Our Town.
    • Emily Webb talking about the beauty of Earth and how no one realizes it.
    • "They don't understand, do they?"
  • The musical 1776 is pretty lighthearted through its first act, leaving audiences completely unprepared for the emotional gut punch of how that act ends: with the Continental Congress in recess, only the clerk, a maintenance man, and a courier are left in the building and discuss the monumental events that are occuring right in front of them, yet they cannot really be a part of it. The courier notes that two of his friends were killed when the war began and sings "Momma, Look Sharp", about the thoughts of a dying soldier on the battlefield.
  • Almost any Puccini opera. Except Gianni Schicchi (and possibly Edgar, although that was't quite intentional) they've all got somewhere in them where you want to cry for somebody. Usually a dying soprano.
    • Another of Puccini's operas, Tosca, has the incredibly emotional finale, beginning with E Lucevan Le Stelle, Cavaradossi's final goodbye to his love as he is about to be executed, all the way through to Tosca's final piece when she realises that Scarpia had tricked her and Cavaradossi has actually been executed. The way she says his name and calls for him to hurry before the soldiers return, and when she figures out he's dead, are heartbreaking.
    • Madama Butterfly. When she starts singing "Un Bel Di Vedremo".
  • Two moments in Oedipus Tyrannus are particularly heartbreaking: the first, steeped in irony, is when Oedipus declares that he doesn't care who his parents were (at this point he only knows he was adopted), whether they were slaves or princes, even if his beloved wife and everyone despises him for it. In any other play, when Oedipus declares himself the "son of Chance", it would be uplifting and still is, in a horrible way. The second moment comes right at the end, when he's found out who his parents actually were and has blinded himself. His daughters/half-sisters are brought to him so that he can say goodbye, and he asks for their forgiveness for screwing up their lives. Then Creon comes to take them away and Oedipus, so proud and haughty throughout the play, begs for one more moment to embrace them. He doesn't get it.
    • In the last moments of the play, one of the daughters pulls away from Creon, runs back to her father, and leads him offstage, presumably intended to be Antigone. It was sweet, in a heartbreaking sort of way, until you remember what actually happened to Antigone, and connect that fate with the little girl on the stage... then it's just heartbreaking.
  • Both act finales of Sunday in The Park With George.
    • " We will always belong together."
    • " A parent always want to go first. But George was always up and running and I couldn't keep up." Apologies if the exact quotation is a little off.
    • And then there's "Children and Art":

Isn't she beautiful?
 There she is, there she is, there she is, there she is
Mama is everywhere
He must have loved her so much!

  • Sunset Blvd. "With One Look", and "As If We Never Said Goodbye"...sob...
  • Elegies: A Song Cycle by William Finn (composer of Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) is a loosely connected series of songs about death. Some are happy, some are sardonic, and many just open the fricking waterworks. Like "Anytime (I Am There)".
  • Towards the end of Once On This Island, the heroine Ti Moune waits outside the hotel where the man she loves is preparing for his arranged marriage, begging people to let him know she's waiting for him at the gate. Sob.
    • This scene always brought tears to my eyes onstage, particularly when her parents, and then the gods, show up. Particularly in our production, where casting issues made Agwe a woman. Papa Ge's last-minute Heel Face Turn is even more poignant.

Erzulie took her by the hand/and led her to the sea
 Where Agwe wrapped her in a wave/and laid her to her rest
And Papa Ge was gentle/as he carried her to shore
And Asaka accepted her/And held her to her breast
Held her to her breast
Ohhh...Ti Moune...

    • Earlier, Ti Moune sings to her parents as she leaves, "What I am, you made me. What you gave, I owe."
    • "But if I look back, I'll never go..." *sniffle*
  • Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme by Frank McGuinness is the story of eight soldiers from Ulster who fought in the First World War, as told by the only one of them who survived. We know from the beginning that all but one of them are going to die, but that doesn't make the scenes where they're facing a battle they know they're probably not going to survive any less gutwrenching.
  • Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley often treads a very fine line between this and Narm, but if done right it is exceptionally powerful.

SAVAGE: You said there was an animal.
APRIL: Yeah.
SAVAGE: There is. There's one in me too. It's the only thing in me that I love. It wasn't always—it's just that these days, these days, it's the only thing in me—in everybody—that ain't a total fuckin' horrible lie. I. AM. ALONE. [exit]

  • Grey Gardens The whole second act sequence from Edie's refuge in the past in "Around the World" to her attempt to leave Grey Gardens in "Another Winter in a Summer Town."
  • There's an opera, in Italian, about the life of Joseph Carey Merrick, a.k.a., the Elephant Man. The staging is usually pretty stark, though not minimalist, and the music is lovely. The main character is usually played by a fairly fragile countertenor, with no stage makeup to represent the man's very real real-life deformities- making the absolute cruelty of what goes on hard to ignore. On the article here for Hollywood Homely, they mention how in the original production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion they had to keep cutting back on the homeliness of one of the main characters who is SUPPOSED to be plain lest the audience stop sympathising- it's as if whoever's staging the piece is aware of that rule in effect and avoiding it. All we see is a very gentle, very dignified man- being reviled and mistreated and, in the end, only being accepted by a bare few as anything more than a grotesque oddity.
    • Bernard Pomerance's much-acclaimed 1979 stage play The Elephant Man also eschewed makeup for its lead actor, likely for the same reason.
  • The musical Parade
    • The Sh'ma
    • The emotion is universal - "I'm ready to die. Even though this is unjust and unfair, I am ready for my death."
  • Passing Strange has so many great tear-jerking moments like the end of "Keys" and Youth and his Mom's last telephone call.
  • "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" is an exceedingly silly musical, but both "Close Every Door" and the "Any Dream Will Do" reprise when Joseph is reunited with his elderly father - hysterics. Utter hysterics.
    • Joseph All Along.
  • Harper's closing speech in Angels in America:

"I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so."

    • "Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one, and I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins." WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.
  • Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
    • "I made the last payment on the house today...and now there's no one home."
  • The "Vigil" scene
  • Our Town. After Emily gets a chance to see her life all over again, reliving it and realizing how little she appreciated it the first time, she turns to the omnipresent stage manager and asks if anyone truly gets life while they live it. The response -- "No. Saints and poets, maybe."—is just depressing.
    • When George starts crying in front of Emily's grave. It's only for 10 seconds, but gaaaaahhhh...
  • Company: right before the final song, Bobby has an epiphany about friends and being loved. He starts breathing heavily as the rest of the ensemble starts going "BOBBY! BOBBY! Bobby baby / Bobby honey..." as they've done the entire show. In the 2006 run on Broadway, Raul Esparza cut them off with a soul-wrenching, heartbroken, tear-jerking "STTTTOOOOOOOOOOOPPPP!!" He breathed heavily for a few more seconds, asked "What do you get?" sounding as if his whole world had been torn apart... and then segued into the finale, Being Alive, with him playing a slow, stilted piano solo at first and eventually finding enough resolve to stagger to the front of the stage and sing to the world about finding someone to love and show him a reason to be alive.
  • M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang: a de-construction of Madame Butterfly and Asian steroetypes while being a VERY loose re-telling of a true story. Gallimard's final monologue can really get to you. It'd doesn't matter how you hear it.

My name is Rene Gallimard, also known as Madame Butterfly. SOB.

  • The original use of Chekhov's Gun in The Seagull: "Get her out of here. Whatever you have to do, get her out. The fact of the matter is, Konstantin has shot himself."
  • Translations by Brian Friel, both the love scene in the middle, and the ending - Yolland is most likely dead, Maire is almost incoherent with grief, Manus is on the run, and will most likely be caught almost immediately, Sarah is permanently muted... it's sad enough before you start to think about what's coming for the surviving characters, and Ireland in general.
  • Cyrano De Bergerac, when he's reading "Christian's" final letter to Roxanne out loud. It gets worse/better when Roxanne laments "It's All My Fault," but Cyrano tells her, no, if it hadn't been for her, he never would have had one constant, kind, wonderful, female companion his entire life...
  • Jersey Boys (the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons Jukebox Musical) is so fast-paced you'd think it couldn't jerk tears, but each act has at least one scene to trigger the waterworks - "My Eyes Adored You" in the first, which comes as Frankie's first wife leaves him, and "Fallen Angel" in the second when Frankie learns one of his daughters has died - if the monologue beforehand doesn't kill you, the song will.
    • The short reprisal of 'Walk Like a Man' as Tommy is revealed to have dug himself deep into debt. Instead of making any excuses, Tommy adjusts his suit and... He faces the consequences. That's how we fade to black on Act I.
  • R C Sherriff's Journey's End has quite a few (perhaps unsurprising for a play set in WWI), but one of the worst is when Stanhope, the young Captain struggling to cope and turning to alcohol intercepts a letter sent by another soldier, Raleigh to his sister whom Stanhope was once involved with, he expects the letter will reveal his drinking habits and is ashamed as when they were at school Raleigh had idolised him, in fact the letter reveals that Raleigh not only thinks of Stanhope as a hero, but is proud to be his friend If this wasn't bad enough, Raleigh eventually dies in Stanhope's arms
    • Osborne's death on the raid, as we see him maintain a brave face, while quietly accepting that he will never again return to the life (and garden) that he loved. Especially potent given his father-figure status for all of the other officers, especially Raleigh and Stanhope.
      • The final scene also implies that all the other characters die as well.
  • The scene in La Cage aux Folles where Albin sings "I Am What I Am".
  • Time for some happy tears: the Maltby and Shire flop Baby ends Act I with "The Story Goes On," a mother (no pun intended) of a power ballad sung by a young pregnant woman upon feeling her baby kick for the first time.
    • The climaxes of the other two couples in the production to this list. The above example comes from a college junior couple, who predictably decide to marry before their baby is born. A couple of 30-somethings find out (in their own tear-jerker) that they aren't having a baby, and the tension created as they try again fruitlessly leads to their conclusion that a child isn't worth risking their marriage. The third couple, in their 40s, has already had 3 kids, and as the play progresses, the mother starts leaning more and more on the side of abortion, and in the end it seems as though she and her husband are going to get divorced, but at the last second they embrace and decide to start anew. My heart-strings were tuned to a high F#.
  • It's done in lots of different ways, but in Chess, when Freddie tells Florence that he loves her, you can't help but feel bad for him, not least he screwed up beyond the point of having a functional relationship with her.
  • The end of The Drowsy Chaperone, mostly because it tells us of the only relief we have from our dull, unmusical lives.
  • Repo! The Genetic Opera. Some laugh their heads off, some may call it Narm. But 'I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much. Especially the ending.

Nathan: But you've already saved me, dear
Now go and change the world for me
And we will always have each other, in our time of need
Shilo, you're the world to me...

    • The sound of Shilo crying at the end of that song breaks my heart, as does the look on her face in Let The Monster Rise when she turns around and sees the projection of Blind Mag's body.
  • Ragtime. The whole thing, but especially "Your Daddy's Son."
    • 'Till We Reach That Day. Poor, dead Audra McDonald.
    • The final verse of "Make Them Hear You" just before Coalhouse is killed, particularly the lines:

Coalhouse: Teach every child to raise his voice
And then my brothers, then will justice
Be demanded by ten million righteous men
Make them hear you
When they hear you, I'll be near you again . . .

  • "Fame: The Musical" ends with the entire cast mourning the (offstage) death of the main character by cocaine overdose.
    • "These Are My Children"
  • "Some Other Time" from On The Town.
  • "The Fantasticks" 'Love... you are Love'
    • The amusement park setting was a metaphor for a destoyed/changed childhood. Combining this with the greater understanding of life that Matt and Luisa gain throughout the show, losing their childlike naivety, and it really hits home for many people.
  • Merrily We Roll Along has a few - "Not a Day Goes By," "Good Thing Going", "Our Time," and the cut "The Hills of Tomorrow"
    • The musical as a whole is just miserable. You see this complete Jerkass at the beginning, and you're taken back through the years to see just where he lost his hopes and dreams, his promises for tomorrow. It's not a happy play at all, but it's *good*.
  • A play called "Indoor/Outdoor" is the story a cat tells of her life and how she ended up with the family she's with now, while her owner searches for her. That's about a year or so of her life. It's a silly, funny, occasionally touching thing with No Fourth Wall. And then at the end, she says that it's been about 17 years since then, and we quickly come to realize her owner is looking for her because she's sick, and not going to get better. In the end, she dies surrounded by her family, and for a moment, "Silly Love Songs," which plays the first time when she and her owner meet at the shelter, plays again. It's more touching than it sounds.
  • There are several in the show Hair (theatre) - particularly "Frank Mills", the Finale ("Eyes, Look Your Last/Let The Sunshine In"), "Children's Games" and "Three-Five-Zero-Zero".
    • The finale, in which it's revealed that Claude has been killed in Vietnam.
    • The worst part about rehearsing this is that some people weren't taking it seriously enough, so the director stopped rehearsal and gave us a lecture using some touchy words - words like "massacre" and "Columbine". * eyes well up*
  • In Proof, the flashback scene of Catherine and Robert where Robert tells her he has finally had a break through, the most lucid he's been in years... and when Catherine begins reading the proof, it's complete and total gibberish. Her father is getting worse, not better.
    • The scene between Catherine and Hal where Hal reads the notebook Robert wrote during his lucidity about her was the scene she volunteered to read in front of an acting class.
  • The ending of Coram Boy, when Meshak dies and Aaron is reunited with his parents, Alex and Melissa—and the show ends with the Hallelujah freakin' Chorus.
  • The Diviners, at the end of both acts. Especially Act II.
  • Although it's a school play and only known because of Amanda Palmer's involvement, With the Needle That Sings in her Heart is an amazing, somewhat bizarre and touching story of the Holocaust, portrayed through the fictionalized imagination of Anne Frank.
  • Another Sondheim musical - Follies. The whole thing is depressing, but some songs... "The Road You Didn't Take," "In Buddy's Eyes," "Losing My Mind" are particularly sad.
  • War Horse - a play about an English horse sent with the cavalry to France in WWI, and his boy, who follows him. Between the idiocy of sending a cavalry charge against German machine guns, to Albert having to put a mortally wounded horse out of her misery, to Joey (the titular warhorse) being stranded in No Mans Land and getting trapped by barbed wire, all while the full size, ridable horses in the play are performed by PUPPETS.
    • The deaths of Major Nicolls, the German officer and especially Topthorn, but mostly the reunion scene at the end, when Albert has been blinded by tear gas, and he and Joey recognise each other purely by sound... and then the final scene when he goes home a broken man. If you don't shed a tear at some point, you have no soul.
  • Tom Stoppard has a couple of these:

Rosencrantz: That's it then, is it? The sun's going down, or the earth's coming up, as the fashionable theory would have it. Not that it makes any difference. (small pause) What was it all about? When did it all begin? Couldn't we just stay put? I mean, no one is going to come and drag us off...they'll just have to wait...we're still young...fit...we've got years...(pause. No answer. A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone! Did we?

Guildenstern: Our names shouted in a certain dawn...a message...a summons...there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said--no. But somehow we missed it. (he looks round and sees that he's alone) Rosen--? Guil--? (he gathers himself) Well, we'll know better next time. Now you see me, now you-- (disappears)

    • The end of Arcadia, when the timelines have merged and Hannah is dancing with Gus in 1993 while Septimus and Thomasina are dancing in 1813 on the shared stage. Doubly a Tear Jerker because Hannah has just learned that Thomasina died that night in a fire started by the candle Septimus lights for her.
    • The moment in Rock N Roll where Jan comes back to his Prague apartment to find that not only has it been raided by police, but that they broke all the records in his ceiling-high collection. Absolutely sickening to any music fan (and indeed, Jan's immediate reaction is to run off stage and vomit), but pile on top of that the running theme in the play of the power musical counterculture had in inspiring people to topple communism...
  • Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz, a tribute to her brother who died from AIDS. The play is prefaced by Carl's letter describing lovingly but humerously how he would like his funeral and how he'd like to be remembered. Sob!
  • The finale of Jekyll and Hyde.
  • South Pacific, when we learn that Lieutenant Joe Cable has been killed, and later, when Nellie tells his devastated lover. And the finale, which finds Nellie putting aside her prejudices to be a mother to Emile's biracial children, and when she and Emile joyfully reunite.
  • The Laramie Project concerns the beating and death of Matthew Shepard, which is in itself a difficult topic. The description of Reggie, the police officer who found Shepard, is really horrible: the only part of his face she could see were the places where he'd been crying. The speech of the CEO of the hospital where Shepard died. He's delivering it on live television and is reading a statement from Mrs. Shepard, which reads, "Go home, give your kids a hug, and don't let a day go by without thinking about them." He then says that his only thought was oh, God, she doesn't have her kid anymore and breaks down crying on television. Mr. Shepard's speech at the end is also heartbreaking. ("May you live a long life, Mr. McKinney, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.")
  • Waiting for Godot while comedic, has an overall tragic message, if it has one at all. At one point, the protagonists are so overcome with the futility of their existence, they can neither leave the stage nor meet Godot, they actually try to kill themselves. The tear-jerker comes when they can not hang themselves because a tree isn't strong enough, nor can they kill each other because one of them will be left alive, a fate which they consider, in their soul-crushing surroundings, to be worse than death.
  • When Dr. Frank N. Furter sings 'I'm coming home?' on the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  • In the Heights has it in the form of "Alabanza" after Abuela Claudia dies.
  • The end of The King and I.
  • The title song of Legally Blonde: The Musical sung by Elle.
  • As much as Shrek the Musical was pretty forgettable, the Big Bright Beautiful World reprise Shrek sings at Fiona and Farquaad's wedding so he can convince Fiona he loves her. "I know I'm not the handsome prince for whom you've waited / I don't have a fancy castle and I'm not sophisticated / A princess and an ogre, I admit, is complicated / You've never read a book like this / But fairy tales should really be updated..."
    • Who I'd Be, full stop. The whole song is tearjerking, especially for anyone who has been a social outcast for the better part of their lives, but especially so is Shrek's brief pause, after describing how he'd be a hero and rescue the princess from the tower, and he'd 'remove his helmet.'
  • The Ramona Outdoor Play has several tearjerker moments. At the end of the Indian scene in honor of Ramona and Alessandro's new baby, you see the Americans riding out of the hills, coming to drive the Indians out. A few scenes later, the baby gets sick and dies. Then, in the penultimate scene, Alessandro goes mad and takes a horse belonging to a local bad guy named Jim Farrar. Farrar tracks him down and shoots him to death in front of his wife. In the final scene, it is revealed that the Californios have lost their land, and all of them head for Mexico, singing the Spanish song of farewell, La Golondrina.
    • Ramona sobs over her dead child and cries out in anguish to God, then takes the baby and runs home, calling out for her husband.
  • In The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Olive—who has been saving a seat for her no-show dad and whose mother is on a pilgrimage in India—is given the word "chimerical." She proceeds to sing to her faraway mother about how much she misses her and how she doesn't know how to deal with the fact that her father is taking out his anger at his wife by being emotionally cold to his daughter... and is joined by a vision of her mother and father singing I love you/I love you/I love everything about you. And at the end, Olive spells the word correctly and gives the definition: highly unrealstic, wildly fanciful.
  • Morris Panych's "The Girl In The Goldfish Bowl". Everything's gonna be okay! Really! The missle crisis was averted, and Iris and her parents can be a family again! And then Iris's mom leaves anyway, and Iris grows up in an instant.
  • 'The Letter' from Billy Elliot : The Musical. Both Mum's Letter and Billy's Reply.
    • "Deep Into the Ground". Counts as a Tear Jerker in-universe, as Billy's father can't even finish the song he's so choked up.

Oh once, I loved a woman
She meant all the world to me
Saw ourselves a future
As far as I could see
But I was only forty-seven
When they took her down from me
And buried her deep...

  • Several different times during Copenhagen - especially when Heisenberg talks about how he almost wishes the highly unsafe nuclear reactor he was working on had melted down and killed him, and during his final monologue.
    • Bohr's line "Whereas you, my dear Heisenberg, never managed to contribute to the death of one single solitary person in all your life." You can just hear his regret.
  • The only show at which I've truely damn near broke down and sobbed was the original play Trust, as produced by the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Watching a happy nuclear family unravel completely because of a child's trust in people had me swimming in my own tears and trying not to make any noise. It's powerful stuff.
  • Most of Act 3 of A Raisin in the Sun, mainly Walter's two speeches:

Walter: You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction...a business transaction that’s going to change our lives...That’s how come one day when you ‘bout seventeen years old I’ll come home...I’ll pull the car up on the driveway...just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires...the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you... All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son, it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided?...Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll be it...Whatever you want to be—Yessir! You just name it, son . . . and I hand you the world!

  • "Some Things Are Meant To Be" from Little Women, even without knowing the context, hearing her just sing "All my life, I've lived for loving you...let me go now"...
    • The combination of "Some Things Are Meant to Be" followed by "Days of Plenty" followed by "The Fire Within Me" on the cast recording
  • "Home" and "If I Can't Love Her" from Beauty and The Beast are major-league tear-inducing songs.
  • Madame Ranevskaya's Heroic BSOD when her beloved cherry orchard is purchased by Lopakhin, and he starts ranting about how he's finally become a Self-Made Man in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
    • And the last scene, with Firs being left behind and dying. SOB.
  • Brundibar. The existence of the show is a real life tearjerker; it was written and performed in a concentration camp, with a cast of children. The majority of the cast, including the composer, died at Auschwitz. It's a simple, wholesome children's opera, but Reality Subtext makes so many moments in it just physically hurt. The worst is how victorious it is, in defiance to where it was written and performed; the villain is vanquished, the grown-ups aren't evil and they learn their lesson, the children welcome you at the end to be their friend as well. This doesn't even need a spoiler; you know it from the start, that good will win out in the end. And after thinking about the fate of the original cast you aren't so sure any more.
  • Footloose: Strangely enough. "Can You Find it in Your Heart?".
  • Anne of Green Gables:The Musical when Matthew dies, singing the title song to Anne. Followed immediately by 'The Words', sung by Marilla, about how she was unable to tell him how she loved him. *sniffle*
  • And the pseudo sequel, Anne & Gilbert when Anne is reading the letter her parents wrote her.
  • In A Very Potter Musical, right after Voldemort has abandoned Quirrel to Azkaban and Dumbledore has died, Harry starts to sing a song called "Missing You", with Quirrel joining in. You would think with lines like "Watch a movie, roller skate/fill the world with fear and hate..." the song would be narmful, but some that, combined with the utter woobiefication of Quirrel just makes the whole song a punch to the gut.
    • And then the sequel has To Have a Home, which resonates with anyone who's ever been rejected then found a place where they truly belong, and Guys Like Potter, which, despite its last line, deals with the always-tearjerking Snape/Lily ship in a way comparable to the Prince's Tale chapter.
  • Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Proctor choosing his death to rescue a true reputation and honor. A Foregone Conclusion if you know the history. Proctor could have choosen to "confess" and resume his life with his wife, whom he wanted to amend for cheating on her, but he realizes he cannot live on a weak lie. To make it more heartwenching, a pregnant Elizabeth forgives him, respects his choice, and they kiss good-bye. "God forbid I [take his goodness] from him.
  • "A Way Back To Then" from Title of Show
  • Caroline, Or Change goes unmentioned?
    • Lot's Wife, oh god.
  • No it is not an actual production. Carrie, yes, that old flop that will have a revival. The ending of the workshop production is strangely relatable if you think back of particular real life tragic events that occured at schools. In the ending of the workshop readings, after Carrie is driven to anger and kills everyone, the audience is to be shown photos of teens arriving at their prom "ready to celebrate. One final photo appears. It is of Carrie, in her prom dress, happy."
  • The reprise of "The Colors of My Life" from Barnum: Earlier in the play Barnum and Chairy each sing their own lyrics to the song (Barnum's world is full of bold, garish color; Chairy's is neutral and clean). In the middle of the second act they sing the song together and it really emphasizes how much they love each other. Then Chairy exits and Barnum calls her name a couple of times, but she never comes back. It's one of the simplest, heartwrenching representations of death in a play.
    • It's telling that in the filmed-for-TV staging starring Michael Crawford as Barnum, he sheds real tears in this sequence.
  • Obviously, "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music is quite sad, but can be elevated to insanely tearjerking levels in the hands of the right actress. Glynis Johns's performance.
  • Iolanthe when the title fairy pleads her case to the Lord Chancellor, and then when her plea fails.
  • In Edward Albee's Seascape, when the human Charlie tries to explain emotions to the sea creatures, he riles up Sarah rather cruely, forcing these creatures to think of and feel things they never have before in their lives. He yells at Sarah and tells her that she would "cry her eyes out" if her Leslie would ever leave her, causing Sarah to cry for the first time in her life at the thought of loosing her mate. Leslie then get very angry and proceeds to attack Charlie for upsetting Sarah so badly. The raw emotion in both the sea creatures makes this scene an overwhealming Tear Jerker in this overall lighthearted play.

Leslie: You...you made her do that! You made her cry!"

  • Listen to the quartet "If Only" from The Little Mermaid and see how long you can hold out before the tears just cascade. It's unlikely you'll make it to the halfway point.
  • "Cute Boys with Short Haircuts" from the Vanities musical, sung by Kathy after Gary dumps her. She never really recovers. Also, "Friendship Isn't What It Used To Be", appropriately used at the story's Darkest Hour. Further adding to the dim mood, the scenery is withdrawn and the lights are turned off except for the spotlights illuminating the characters. The Dark Reprise of "An Organized Life", and "Looking Good" from the TheatreWorks and Off-Broadway versions, can also bring forth the waterworks.
  • "Reprise: In My Own Little Corner" from Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. "In My Own Little Corner" is overused and overdone, and the reprise is not different. That is, until the end, when Cinderella sadly sings the final words "All alone" and then a "The Sweetest Sounds" instrumental comes in as she runs out, unable to sing the rest of the song. Good performances twist the audiences' heartstrings when they have Cinderella run out of the scene just as the instrumental comes in. Done right, it's utterly heartbreaking.
  • The ending of Sunset Boulevard faces a daunting challenge—how can the film's final shot of Norma Desmond coming in for her close-up be translated into stage terms? Well, after her iconic final line, and as she moves towards the camera, she reprises "With One Look" as a scrim is lowered behind her (concealing the huge mansion set and the other people on stage). As she sings of how "With one look I'll be me", the scrim is filled with the black-and-white close-up of a beautiful, young, beamingly-smiling ingenue...what she thinks that close-up will be...what she thinks she is. This tearjerker is the note the show ends on.
    This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.