It’s been almost ten years since Olivier, Tony and Grammy winning musical Dear Evan Hansen first hit the stage, and arguably its themes of mental illness, social media, and teenage loneliness more relevant than ever. Currently on a UK tour, the Nottingham Playhouse production will be at The New Theatre until Saturday night.
One thing that sets this tale apart from its peers is the almost Shakespearean plot at its centre. Evan Hansen (Ryan Kopel) is a socially anxious teenager with a loving but hugely overworked single mother, Heidi (Alice Fearn). He has been instructed by his therapist to write himself confessional letters. One of these printed letters is found by Connor Murphy (Killian Thomas Lefevre, who plays the role with a deadpan charisma), the miserable, outcast older brother of Evan’s crush, Zoe (Lauren Conroy). When Connor takes his own life later that day, his parents assume the letter (addressed to Evan) is a suicide note, and that the two boys were secretly close friends. Evan goes along with this misconception, at first out of embarrassment and pity, and then increasingly out of a desire for the social benefits that accompany it. Soon, he’s creating a whole series of emails between himself and Connor, leading conversations on mental health at his school, and dating Zoe. What could go wrong?
Morgan Large’s set design is genius, with its blue tones and many glass layers, perfectly mirroring the plot’s complexities and sense of alienation. The use of smaller sets on wheels to bring together a family home or a school hallway gives an almost cinematic quality, the focus of the shot tightening and broadening effortlessly.
The beauty and tension of the writing in the first act was down to how deeply unlikable Evan is allowed to be. There is a Ripley-ish slime to the way he uses the emotions of the characters around him to become loved and respected, and disregards those he no longer needs as his star continues to rise, including his at-one-point only friend, the cheerfully nihilistic Jared (Tom Dickerson, comedic and convincing). There is not a character in this story that Evan doesn’t say something either manipulative or cruel to at some point.
The excellence of the music helps - chipper, earnest, deeply catchy songs bring a brightness to the uneasy tone of the material, which cannot seem to decide how flippantly it wants us to treat Connor’s death, but is nonetheless pulled along by the audacity of its central lie.
The acting is also phenomenal. As Evan, Ryan Kopel is a rare actor who convincingly conveys shyness in between belting out big Broadway numbers, and Alice Fearn as Heidi Hansen brings immediate warmth and intensity to her character, as well as the most moving song of the show (more on this in a minute). Meanwhile, Lauren Conroy’s soaring voice, sincerity and nimble timing make her an absolute stand-out. Elsewhere, Vivian Panka gets big laughs as Alana, a Type-A social schemer also looking to capitalise on Connor’s death.
There’s a queasy brilliance to the final song of the first act - “You Will Be Found”. Centering on an inspirational speech Evan gives about his ‘best friend’ which goes viral, the song is a genuinely lovely piece about the importance of reaching out and how none of us are truly alone. Out of context, it seems straightforwardly inspirational and heartwarming. The staging, involving a multimedia display of dozens of social media profiles popping up as Evan’s message spreads, is great. But it’s the bitter irony underpinning it - that the subject of the song was, in fact, deeply alone and is now being exploited in death by his peers in exchange for likes and popularity - that makes it unforgettable.
With regards to the second act of the play, it feels a bit like the panicked, backtracking text you send after rereading your drunken rant from the evening before. It’s as though between the start of the interval and rise of the curtain on act two, the creators lost all the courage of their convictions. Either that, or Evan was fundamentally mischaracterised from the start. As such, the play contorts itself in unconvincing and deeply unsatisfying ways to avoid asking its central character to take accountability for his actions.
This leads to grossly inequitable levels of empathy extended to its characters, with the female ones drawing the short straw more often than not. Zoe, who it's implied was treated cruelly by her brother in his life, is tasked by the plot with forgiving first him, and then Evan, a boy who used her grief and a series of lies to manipulate her into a relationship. By the end of the show, there is simply no place for her to have any anger, grief or complexity.
The same goes for Evan’s mother, whose song 'So Big/So Small' is a gorgeous hymn to the power of parental love, that brought me and my guest to tears, but whose character is ultimately reduced to an entirely selfless figure. She exists solely to protect not just Evan’s future, but his feelings as well.
The story sets itself up to potentially explore a range of rich and relevant themes, the sexist expectations put on women to smilingly support men at all costs, the impact of money (or lack thereof) on mental health, how social media has made teenagers feel more nihilistic and isolated than ever, and crucially whose feelings are allowed to matter and whose are fodder for jokes. But sadly, this is all abandoned to shoehorn the final act into an absurd and generic message of self acceptance.
Should you go see this show? Maybe. If you don’t share my exasperation with the central story, you’d be hard pressed to find a better production of it. I can’t fault the direction, acting, staging or set. And, given the flurry of awards the show has won, my opinion is clearly not universal. But ultimately for me, the tale of Dear Evan Hansen just isn’t one to write home about.
