I knew nothing about the show coming into the Solaire Theatre on press night for ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ I knew that it was a popular musical – it won six of the nine Tony Awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical and Best Score, and was later adapted into a film – and that Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the music and lyrics, are well-loved songwriters having written the songs of ‘La La Land,’ ‘The Greatest Showman,’ and a Broadway musical that I love, ‘Dogfight.’ I was expecting a great show, due to this popularity and how it’s the “favourite musical” of my close friends. What I was not expecting was to be pulled in two very different emotional directions.
First off, as a show, ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ was quite strong. The set design by Morgan Large along with the video direction and design by Large and Ravi Deepres, really created such powerful images, quickly transforming the stage from bedroom to school hallway complete with lockers, to a kitchen or a living room. The sets just swipe in and it’s quite a feat to watch. The stage is practically empty except for when the different set ups just rush in to complete the scene while the video wall in the back can heighten a song by creating a dazzling display that highlights the context of the scene. It’s so brilliantly put-together that it was doing exactly what it should without overwhelming a scene. The cast was quite strong, especially Ellis Kirk, who played the titular role of Evan Hansen, and Rebecca McKinnis, who plays Evan’s mom, Heidi. Both Kirk and McKinnis really brought the play to the emotional level it needed to go to and they were the cast’s strongest singers to boot.
The direction by Adam Penford allowed the show to shift and slide off to its comedic moments but can throw itself into its much darker themes when it has to. The cast do quite a good job at playing high school kids, though Tom Dickerson just looked like a mature man to effectively sell the character of Jared, Evan Hansen’s neighbour and only confidant. He did as best as he could to try and portray a teen but his height, body frame, and looks just went counter the imagery that I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. I had no trouble with the others, most especially with Kirk and Zoe Athena, who plays Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen’s crush in school.
The songs of Pasek and Paul are so good that you can understand why the musical won a Tony, and it’s an overall good production. What shocked me, though, was halfway through the first act, I started to feel very uncomfortable with where the show was going narratively. The book by Steven Levenson details the story of an anxious high school senior who is tasked by his therapist to write letters to himself every day to help with his anxiety, hence the name of the play. After an encounter with Connor, the school bully, one of Evan’s letters gets mistaken for having been written by Connor and Evan begins to lie to try and become part of a larger narrative. Connor happens to be Zoe’s brother, Zoe being Evan’s crush in high school. The suicide shocks the whole campus, and it is even more shocking to discover that Connor had a friend and it’s the socially awkward outsider, Evan Hansen.
What makes the show so uncomfortable is how far Evan takes this lie and how much bigger the misunderstanding grows. It gets so big that, at some point, it becomes harder and harder to imagine how the story can properly position Evan into a place where he can be forgiven for what he’s done. Lives are changed, perceptions are altered, and even a movement begins, and it’s all based on a lie from one socially awkward young man with a serious mental condition who just wanted to belong.
The play never actually manages to properly give any sort of justice to the characters of the story. The way it handles all the deception was so uncomfortable to me that, no matter how powerful McKinnis sings her song near the end of Act II (‘So Big So Small,’) as she cradles her son when he finally tells the truth to her (after he does such a horrid thing to her as well) I found myself so incapable of connecting. People around me were sobbing as Evan sings his regret (‘Words Fail’) in a powerful ballad but nobody is there to hear him. It’s a soliloquy but it does not equate to asking for forgiveness. Not in any way that is meaningful to the ones who were hurt.
And I sit in my seat, amazed at how Kirk manages to keep me invested in his performance despite my inability to connect with the character he plays; this role would kill a lesser actor. Instead, I think about the women of the show – Zoe, who was terrorized by her brother when he was alive, Connor’s mom, and Evans’ mom – who all have to suffer from Evan’s deceit, yet must somehow forgive him because he’s broken and not let him face the full consequence of his actions.
I sit there wondering how to feel. The performances were great. That stage design and the video wall made so much theater magic with something so simple. And yet, I just couldn’t bring myself to empathize with story. A lot of people did, though, but I felt like justice was denied and that it wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to applaud that, no matter how good the production was.
My Rating:
Dear Evan Hansen runs until October 5, 2025, at The Theater at Solaire. Don’t miss the chance to experience this Tony Award-winning musical live on stage. Tickets are available at Ticketworld.
