Dear Evan Hansen

DEAR EVAN HANSEN HAS IT ALL AND DESERVES NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN!

One moment can change everything.  One thought, one conversation, one letter, one misunderstanding.  Life is fragile, vulnerable, yet fuelled by energy and strength.  It is full of love, hate, joy, sadness, an uncontrolled chaotic mix of opposing moments.  Moments that can fulfil our hearts desire, moments that can shatter our world.  Dear Evan Hansen is one of those moments.  A beautifully told story of grief and loss, a story of consequence and fierce inner battles.  A story to wake us up, to remember that the cover of the book does not tell the story.  The story is locked away inside, there to be discovered by anyone willing to take the time.  Dear Evan Hansen is a moment in your life that will change you.  It will open your heart, teaching and allowing you to be more empathic, more vulnerable, more authentic.  And in that moment, you will see your true self, for it strips away the layers of life that have shrouded our hearts in a prism of protection.  It is heartbreakingly beautiful yet superbly humorous, and it is a moment that will stay with me and serve me well.

Dear Evan Hansen raises the question, “If a lie brings comfort to a grieving family, is this a form of kindness, or something to own up to?”  Evan Hansen finds himself in the grips of the unimaginable as fellow student Connor Murphy takes his own life, and is found with a letter addressed to Evan.  Everyone wrongly assumes that this is evidence of their close friendship, Connor’s final goodbye to his loyal friend.  But the truth is, Evan has his own demons, demons that his counsellor encourages him to express by writing letters to himself.  A letter that the dark and brooding bully Connor found and stole before taking his own life whilst still in possession of.  As the assumption expands into an untamed and tangled web of lies, resulting in strangers wishing Evan compassion for losing his ‘best friend’, Evan finds himself seen for the first time in forever.  He pours fuel onto the lie by writing further letters, creating an entire history of the fictional friendship.  With a departed dad and a mum who is never home due to working herself to the bone to provide for Evan, he finds himself as the surrogate son for the Murphy family, heady with their love and attention, as they desperately try to grasp anything to help keep their boy alive.  But lies have a habit of crashing and burning, and the bigger the lie, the bigger the fall.  Evan must face his demons for there is no quick fix in learning to accept yourself.  It is a long but worthy journey that perhaps, we never quite finish.

Directed by Adam Penford, this dazzling new production has taken the UK by storm!  A more subtle and slick showcase of character, and slightly less driven by social media influence proves to be an inspired choice, making the characters accountable for their own decisions.  Without the bombardment of faceless keyboard warriors to hide behind, the characters have to sit up and be responsible for their own part in the lies, stripping away the excuse of mob mentality and forcing ownership.  Every choice the characters make begin and ends with them.  With themes of anxiety, depression, suicide, social media, bullying, grief and loss, Dear Evan Hansen awakens something in you and will have you blubbing throughout, but the spirit of youth is most definitely alive ensuring you will also belly laugh too, leaving you with a mixture of hot salty tears of laughter and heartache.  This multi Tony Award and Olivier Award winning show is of course scored by the ridiculously talented Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, The Greatest Showman).  The score is vibrant, full of personality and emotive to say the least, sung with exquisite and intricate harmonies throughout that are spine tinglingly beautiful.  Perhaps the most known song is You Will Be Found, and hearing it live, it is easy to see why.  Its impact lies way beyond a mere song in a musical.  It is autobiographical, it’s alive, because it really does find you and best of all, allows you to simply see yourself, hold your own hand, and know your own worth.  

Morgan Large has designed a succinct set with pieces that reflect the individual character.  For instance, Evan’s bedroom has shelves homing the odd stuffed animal, a nod to his naivety, whereas Jared’s set is full of gaming lights – a glowing reminder of his obsession with technology.  The set changes happen swiftly and without fuss so you barely notice them, ensuring the flow of the narrative and our connection to it is not broken.  Morgan Large and Ravi Deepres co designed the videos which, along with lighting designer Matt Daw stunningly enhance the production and form an intricate part of the storytelling.  The beauty of this struck me in You Will Be Found as images and lights danced with each other, emphasising the swelling heartbeat of the show.  Carrie – Anne Ingrouille choreographs with an infectious energy, with a highlight found in Sincerely Me, as we see the teenagers fling themselves around the stage with unapologetic freedom and infectious fun.

Ryan Kopel (Newsies, Book Of Mormon) personifies the stomach churning, inescapable twisted claws of anxiety to perfection as Evan Hansen.  I cannot praise and admire this talented star enough.  He gave himself over entirely to the role and we all saw something incredibly special tonight.  He navigates his awkwardness, his desire to belong and to be seen with such honesty and raw exposure that you can’t help but be drawn to him and want to rescue him.  There has long been a debate regarding the character of Evan Hansen, regarding his part in allowing a deceitful lie to permeate a distraught family, but Ryan Kopel’s performance beautifully reminds us to practice empathy.  We are allowed to explore that whilst Evan’s choices might not always be acceptable, they are understandable.  This rings so true in his rendition of For Forever as we are witnesses to Evans soul.  Ryan Kopel ensures we see Evan as the vulnerable, lost teenager he is, blindly thrust into an impossible situation, with little life experience to navigate his way through.  He takes us from comedic gold to the stripped bare emotional core of his being, making you laugh, cry, and wring out your very core.  Sensational.  
 

Watching the irrepressible Alice Fearn (Wicked, Come From Away) bring Heidi Hansen, Evans Mum, to life was incredible.  A luminous storyteller, Alice Fearn expertly creates the chasm between herself and Evan, sending him deeper into the Murphy’s family nest.  But Alice Fearn's performance makes it crystal clear that Heidi’s lack of time for Evan is not due to disinterest or a lack of love, quite the opposite.  We clearly see herself working her fingers to the bone because of her fierce and overpowering love for her son.  Love can be so strong and intense that it can misguide us and place our energies in the wrong place.  Evan may not see this, but Alice Fearn ensures the audience do.  The powerhouse voice that we know and love is allowed to shine and emote, providing us with a storytelling masterclass in So Big / So Small, truly giving you a memory to behold.  It also provides real insight into the root of Evan’s anxiety, and equally into Heidi’s world, a world that is so different from the one she thought she would have.  A mother trying her best, giving her all.  Pure love.

The Murphy family are brought to life by Will Forgrave (The Sound Of Music, The Go-Between) as tonight’s alternative Connor, Lara Beth - Sas (Treasure Island, Friends The Musical Parody as the alternate for Connor’s sister Zoe, Richard Hurst (A Chorus Of Disapproval, The Lion King) as Connor’s dad Larry, and Helen Anker (The Essence Of Audrey, Mamma Mia) as Connor’s mum Cynthia.  Will Forgrave establishes Connor as the dark, brooding, mysterious teenager, no doubt making many young hearts in the audience flutter.  His sarcasm was timed to perfection, and he truly brought many of the difficult themes to life in a way that will make you think twice, reminding us that we are all capable of putting on a performance and hiding our true inner world.  Lara Beth - Sas places Zoe beautifully on an island, distancing herself to see more clearly, refusing to remember her brother for anyone other than who he was, not the candlelit vigil hero social media have turned him into.  She equally highlights the different path that grief may take for younger souls and that perhaps, despite her younger years, is often more mature in her handling of the situation than her parents.  Richard Hurst and Helen Anker are the perfect pairing, exploding onto the stage like a rogue missile with their bruised and battered love flaring with electricity.  Their performances are heart wrenching, both playing two sides of the same coin, joined by loss, torn apart by grief, showing they are not one and the same thing.  Some of these scenes were the rawest to watch, a couple once so in love withered and beaten by life, trying to come to terms with the impossible.  

Richard Hurst brilliantly delivers a stoic and trapped grief, showing his characters inability to be vulnerable, a fizzing, boiling pot of emotion ready to explode.  Yet when he has scenes with Evan, an unexpected tenderness appears, revealing the cause of his inner turmoil, a life full of paternal love that no longer has a son to land upon.  It is beautifully tragic to behold.  This plays out in their duo How To Break In A Glove, and I wasn’t the only one in the audience smiling away my silent tears.  Helen Anker’s performance wraps itself around your heart and rips it out so you feel her visceral pain.  You absorb her desperation to connect with Evan, to keep the light of her son burning in any way she can.  You feel the weight of Evans lies through her exquisite performance, and as the Murphy family join to sing Requiem it perfectly sums up how personal grief is, and how it can solidify the strongest of bonds or break families apart. 

Evans best friend Jared is performed with all the cheeky charm of an innuendo driven teenager by Tom Dickerson (Heathers, Book Of Mormon).  He helps to remind us of, and solidify, that these are teenagers caught up in a situation that most adults would struggle to navigate.  This is summed up with exceptional talent and humour in Sincerely Me, a perfectly witty brotherhood of a song that may set a lie in motion but allows us to see there is no malice or ill intent.  Vivian Panka (Heathers, 9 To 5) completes the main cast as Alana, fantastically delivering the chaos of a teenage mind.  A seemingly good deed dripping with self-interest, but which only comes from a deeper need to be seen, to belong to something, to feel connection.  Vivian Panka’s performance is a true representation of how many young people feel during a tragic event.  Are they allowed to grieve if they weren’t friends with the person who passed away?  Are they allowed to feel broken that someone in their community died?  Does the grief of an unspeakable event have a limited number of fully paid-up members and if you’re not one of them, do you have the right to speak of it?  Like many in Manchester, I have lived through an unimaginable event, trying to help my teenage students navigate their way through things they shouldn’t have to face.  I have witnessed firsthand their utter confusion about who is allowed to grieve the hardest.  I have seen teenagers be accused of using someone’s death for their own gain, and it’s brutal.  Vivian Panka brought a lot of memories flooding back, truly highlighting the truth in her performance.     
   

Dear Evan Hansen is one of those shows that just has it.  It’s not an easy one to put into words, though I’ve tried, but that’s its beauty and its success.  It is a show that, through tears and laughter, really forces you to look inwards and be kinder to the person you see waving back at you.  It picks you up and shakes you, truly shakes your eyes wide open to the bigger picture, to the people who you know, and even those you don’t, to just be kind.  Because as Evan sings, ‘no one deserves to be forgotten.’  Well, mission complete because tonight is most definitely a night that I won’t forget.

WE SCORE DEAR EVAN HANSEN...