#the musical will still jump back and forth in time like the game

[pawseds]

Ok guys hear me out. Mouthwashing works as a musical. So many monologues can be turned into songs. Swansea's monologue can be a solo. Anya's monologue can be a solo. Curly gets his I Want song and it probably has the word 'ladder' in its title. There's absolutely one track called 'I Hope This Hurts'. Heck, even cutscenes can turn ito songs. The Dead Pixel conversation. Curly's birthday and his announcement. Jimmy convincing Daisuke to climb into the vent (Jimmy sings the tune Daisuke sang when the latter was passed out on the ground, explaining why he's on the Tuplar and hoping his mom won't blame him). Jimmy repenting to Curly burning in a chair (and the track's name is definitely Heroes like in the game's OST). Even segments of surrealistic gameplay can be turned into songs (like aforementioned ladder song).

Characters can also have their own leitmotifs. Jimmy's first appears in a track called 'I Can Fix This', and it comes up in every scene he fucks up. Just like how the sound of a baby crying is a motif scattered through Mouthwashing's OST (like how the baby crying at the very start foreshadows how you're playing as Jimmy, not Curly), Anya's leitmotif is constantly everywhere, but always sounds incomplete, like a question with no answer, a cry for help with no response, since her existence and trauma is never fully acknowledged. It's only completed in her own solo, since she had to fend for herself in the end.

But wait. Why does the second half of her leitmotif sound familiar? Why does it sound like one of the opening numbers 'Polly Says' whose corporate-cheerful juxtaposes the Tuplar's crews mundane routine? This bit ties into that theory of Polly being Anya's vengence in a way, with how the two have the same text colour in a game where all characters have unique text colours. When Anya dies, the Polly half of the leitmotif constantly haunts the tracks or something up until 'Polly Says, Reprise' plays in that final conversation between Jimmy and Polly. Maybe Anya's leitmotif comes back in that scene. Idk. I don't study theatre or music but this idea just struck me like lightning. In this essay I will-