Rhyme

Hanging out with Beauty and the Beast, in rehearsal at Globe Theatre (I'm prepping for my live audio description on June 12), I hear the famous "tale as old as rhyme" line. I do believe rhyme is old. In my Artist Lab coming up May 19, I'll propose why.
In doing so, I may employ one or two of these scenarios:
1.
You have ventured far from home until you find yourself alone in the wild, a terrifying place of strange sounds, any one of which could mean great danger. Then you perceive the sound of your mother humming, or your father's footsteps, or the call of Goldilocks, your pet retriever.
2.
You've arrived in a foreign country, surrounded by spoken language you do not understand. Your needs for food, clean water or shelter have become intense. Exhausted, you're not sure how you will solve the problems you face. Just then, you hear a voice in your own language. You connect.
3.
You are chanting among strangers in a yoga studio along 17th Ave in Calgary circa 1973. You were reluctant to take part but got caught up in it. You manage to focus deeply enough for that cosmic hum to resonate through you. You are neither source nor recipient of this energy, just the medium of its passage. For a moment, there is only one sound.
4.
Your car that you bought new and have driven 200,000 km in twelve years begins to squeal, scrape or choke from deep in its driveshaft, engine or wheels. You have no idea how serious the breakdown, or how costly the inevitable repair (your savings thin enough already). You park that night in denial. But next morning, it sounds good as ever.
5.
You stated the question, now you search for the answer. The search takes you far along one line and down several more. You're suspended in doubt re how far you can go, until even coming back seems risky, until you do it.
6.
You're worried about your mother. She stays in bed. She no longer smiles. She goes through the motions unmoved. Then she rallies, up and at 'em like always.
Somewhere in these scenarios, I will suggest, lies (at least an analog to) the power of rhyme. 
I will name and try to explore the Sondheim conviction that pure rhyme is better than near rhyme, though the latter has slacked its way into becoming what we mean when we say "rhyme." (To illustrate this point: see a recent facebook poll that asked readers to pick the "best rhyme" in the Steve Miller Band classic "Take the Money and Run": Is it "El Paso / hassle" or "Texas / facts is." Well, they're both near rhymes, not true rhymes.) It'll be a Broadway vs pop/rock tussle.