Companion Cube/Theatre

Examples of Companion Cubes in Theatre include:

Several characters in Sunday in The Park With George are played by cardboard cutouts. Most seem to be products of George's imagination, though other characters seem to interact with them. In particular, one of a pair of soldiers:

Celeste #1: He's very quiet.
Soldier: Yes. Actually he is. He lost his hearing during combat exercises.
Celeste #1: What a shame.
Soldier: He can't speak either.
Celeste #2: Oh. How dreadful.
Soldier: We have become very close, though.
Celeste #1: So I see.

Paul Hindemith's opera Cardillac is about a goldsmith who treats his creations like his own children: he sings to them, swears to protect them—and murders his customers to regain them. Indeed, he treasures his handiwork more than his life-and-blood daughter: his dying glance falls not on his heartbroken daughter, but on the beautiful gold chain hanging on her neck.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: "These are my friends, see how they glisten..."
The famous scene in which Hamlet picks up a skull and laments about the friend it used to belong to ("Alas poor Yorick...") can border on this trope, depending on the performance.
- As written, it does not fall under the trope. Hamlet is talking to Horatio, not the skull. This monologue is frequently taken out of context and turned into a soliloquy that is performed on its own. Since the soliloquy version usually does not have Horatio present, it comes off as Hamlet talking to the skull, which is a borderline invocation of the trope.

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