Dear Evan Hansen

 

When: 29th June 2022 (Matinee)

Where: Noel Coward Theatre, London

Writer: Steven Levenson

Director: Michael Greif

I want to start off by saying that I understand how my opinons on this show could be quite controversial, but I hope to explain them in a way that people understand why. I still massively respect the amount of work and effort everyone invloved has put into this production and I do not believe anyone is bad at their job. Simply for me I just didn't enjoy Dear Evan Hansen as much as the majority of people who have seen it did. 

I used to be massively into Musicals, I didn't go to the theatre a lot and when I did it would be a mainstream musical. My mum was never a big fan of musicals and would always tell me plays were better, and after seeing this I think I have to say I agree. For me Dear Evan Hansen just didn't work. 

I have listened to the soundtrack in the past and I don't dislike the music, but its never been one I was desperate to see, there's always been something putting me off going. In fact the only reason I went was because my sister wanted to see it. I knew it had won awards and people generally loved it so I was hoping after watching it I would change my mind, but it got to the interval and I just wasn't into it. I found myself getting annoyed every time they sang a song, the music just didn't work with the storyline, there was something too upbeat about it and it totally ruined the emotion and flow of the performance. This was nothing to do with the performers, in fact they were brilliant. Each performer totally understood their character and portrayed them beautifully, they were also all amazing singers. However, I don't believe the storyline worked as a musical. There was a brilliant moment when Evan reveals he's been lying in the middle of a family arguement. During this arguement I was finally getting into it, there was emotion and character and it was powerful, but then Evan sang and the emotion was just lost. 

I found the story odd, it was like they wanted to make it relevant to a young, modern day audience, but somehow it felt outdated, or that it couldn't quite decide what it wanted to show, or what it's message was. Clearly they wanted to show the anxiety of the main character, and high school, and the effect of social media, and then the effect of suicide, but this was too much. I think they should have just picked one of these topics and developed a deeper storyline that was much more focused. By mixing all these different issues together, it became lost and unrelatable, like it couldn't quite decide what it was. In this one story, there were probably about 6 storylines that could have been shown on there own in detail, that would have been deep and interesting if explored further, but it was all quite surface level. Suicide and Anxiety are strong storylines, but putting them together diminished both of them. For me it came across as though they had decided to do something on the anxiety of the character, and used the suicide as a device to create a story, but then both of these topics needed full attention to be explored with justice and proper understanding for the audience. The mental health aspect was not explored in enough detail, and some of the characters reactions following the suicide felt odd and unsympathetic. 

I don't know about other peoples experience of high school, particularly that in America, but in my experience, I'm not sure many people would react in the ways shown. Some people may try to profit from it, but it would never get that deep and would be lost within weeks. I also found it funny when they suggested a memorial assembly, as in my experience, everyone hated assemblies and so I felt this was a very weird thing for teenagers to want to do. I didn't like the way suicide was viewed as bringing people together, they never really looked at why it had happened, which to me felt like it should have been a big point if not the main point of the piece. Also Evans character whilst portraying a version of anxiety, felt unrealistic, for someone who was portayed as struggling to speak and make friends, he was way too extroverted. I highly doubt someone with that level of anxiety would manage to lie about something like that to that extent and get away with it, or even anyone without anxiety for that matter. There were so many weird things that Evan made up about his friendship with Connor that I was surprised the family even believed it. I also didn't like how at the end, they accepted why he had done what he did. Talking about parents, the Murphys Family dynamic was super interesting, but totally unexplored, this in itself yet again could have been a storyline on its own. I don't know, there some odd decisions in the story, and it didn't seem to work coherently.

Throughout the performance the set used lots of projection to show social media posts and emails, and videos. Whilst this was a nice idea and was really strong in some songs e.g. 'You Will be Found' it didn't work well in every scene. The scene when Evans Mum is singing about his childhood, could have been really powerful if they had cleared the stage of all the text, the Projection didn't have enough relevance to the scene. If they had stripped back the projection and simply put a warm wash across the stage, it could have been really emotional and the simplicity would have reflected the moment. I felt this about many other scenes during the show as well. It also annoyed that I couldn't read the majority of the text as it had been blurred, obviously intentionally, but if it was just there to add texture to the staging they could have done this in other ways. The Projection was clearly part of the social media strand of the story, but it was in every scene so in those where Suicide or Anxiety were the leading theme the projection didn't really fit.

The other key part of the set was moving circles which had furniture on them to represent different rooms in the house. This I quite liked, it was a nice, slick way of changing scene, and the realism of the furniture made the story feel more real. However, it didn't work against the backdrop of the projection, they conflicted each other too much, in style and simplicity. I think the style of the realistic scenery, suited the production more than the projection did, and if they had just stuck to that it could have been really nice. I also liked the placement of the band, on a platform above, although it didn't seem to have much meaning for them being up there, it was nice that they were on stage, recognised, not hidden away. 

I know that the film was fairly criticised, but watching the show, felt more like a cinema experience than a theatre experience. Watching it I couldn't help but feel it was more suited to screen, and without music. There was little interaction between the story/performance and the audience, and I felt it didn't need to be on stage to have the impact it had, the live action part of it, didn't add anything. I would be interested to watch the film and see what difference that makes although with it still having the songs in it, I'm not sure how well it works. I have actually read the book in the past, and as that has no music, I have to say, I think it's better. There was more character and emotion, and whilst I'm still not sure how I feel about the story, I could get over it more in the book.

Perhaps I am being synical, I definitely think I prefer plays and maybe thats what made me dislike this so much. I was disappointed, I don't often come away from theatre having not enjoyed it, I like theatre. Maybe I just don't like musicals.