WHAT HAS OUR society come to, when a big stagey musical can sing loudly and crassly to the potency of lying about the dead? Dear Evan Hansen is an American production based on a novel which first saw light of day onstage. Then it was made into a less successful film and has now become an international theatre franchise, reeking with the kind of platitudes that have been the morals of children’s literature since time immemorial and are now being feted as brand new, inspiring and of value. Have we, as a world, forgotten ourselves entirely? Dear Evan Hansen performs at Teatro, Montecasino until 6 April 2025.
And as loud, hard-edged stage musicals go, where the characters are dwarfed by massive technological sets, the lyrics are profoundly superficial and the lights set to penetrate your eyelids, it presents technical competence. There are some beautiful moments of harmony between singers who hold the complex notes of this musical well. Stuart Brown opposite Michael Stray as Evan Hansen and Connor Murphy, respectively, work together compellingly, vocally and choreographically. Keely Crocker and Sharon Spiegel Wagner, as daughter and mother, too, reach vocal heights and nuances that ring with beauty.
But the narrative that conceptually holds this work together is so irrepressibly toxic, bleating notions such as “you’re never alone”, when the whole story is couched in a culture of dismissal seems counterintuitive. A boy dies alone by his own hand. His parents announce this fact publicly as though they are commenting on the weather. Nothing further about this death – the whys, the hows, the realities – are part of the script. All we’re left with is the absence in the world of a child who was not loved – and a callous opportunity for those who knew nothing real about him to bask in the momentary headline news at school of his death.
It begs the question of what the young people in the audience of a show of this nature are actually getting out of it. It also ponders what big-scale musicals are really for. Yes, in this industry, there are musicals about murder and mayhem, about glorifying baddies and singing the praises of medical conditions. We are able to laugh with darkness at evil situations, as we are empowered to look cancers in the eye. But in Dear Evan Hansen, we have characters not sufficiently developed to contain nuance. They’re scripted like cardboard cut-outs. They’re articulating difficult moral standpoints, in crude black and white.
This show potentially resonates with works like Jonathan Larson’s 1994 musical Rent, but lacks the depth of focus espoused there. Similarly, the value of the Netflix/BBC production Adolescence reflects the messiness of what matters in society for very young people, and has no clear moral answer, but it’s a work of unequivocal skill and art. Dear Evan Hansen plays to the lowest common denominator of audiences. It’s loud, it’s rude, it laughs at gay boys and has bright lights and loud music and lots of profanity. It’s like a comic book, or a 1980s tv soapie in its sense of dialogue. A step needs to be taken back. What exactly is this work saying and doing? And why?
The tale is allowed to unfold over an interval, presenting a vindication of its initial premises in the second half, and thus give it balance. But so reprehensible are these initial premises that they cannot easily be vindicated. Loss is not well described or meaningfully reflected here. Sudden loss. The loss of a child. Of a sibling. None of this is convincing. And it’s a situation of a teenager no one knew or liked, topping himself and offering the world an opportunity to dance on his proverbial grave with their loves of themselves and a fictitious reflection of who that child may have been, to impress his parents and seduce his sister. It’s obscene and meaningless.
The stage is dominated by a huge technological tower of light, jam-packed with projections and other audio-visual tricks, which when triggered into full action, is an instant panic attack or migraine. Yes, the makers of this work are illustrating the massive impact of social media discourse on young lives, but terrifyingly, this set makes mockery of all the other values that the piece tries to articulate. There are the well-intentioned parents who know nothing of their children’s inner lives, the egotistical youngsters who are more attuned to their own popularity than anything else, the teenagers who are all caught in their own echo-chambers. But the dominance of LED tricks and surprises is so overwhelming, it might be all you’re left with on your way home.
In essence, Dear Evan Hansen is not only homophobic in its jocularity, but it does the opposite of what it promises. In so loudly parading the “you’re never alone” mantra, it becomes a kind of a threat to the individual who wants to be quiet and alone, and almost an incentive to flee from a scaringly grinning society that offers a million digital hearts, “thoughts and prayers” and whatever lies you can paste over someone else’s truths, rather than basic empathy or the ability to just listen to another person.
Dear Evan Hansen is written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul based on the 2011 book by Steven Levenson. It is directed by Greg Karvellas and features creative input by Kurt Haupt (musical direction), Alistair Kilbee (technical direction), Niall Griffin (set, lighting and costumes), Louisa Talbot (choreography), David Classen (sound) and Alex Lacamoire (orchestration and additional arrangements). It is performed by Léa Blerk, Charlie Bouguenon, Stuart Brown, Keely Crocker, Kent Jeycocke, Shelley Lothian, Ntshikeng Matooane, Arno Meyer, Sharon Spiegel Wagner, Michael Stray, Justin Swartz and Lucy Tops. Co-produced by How Now Brown Cow Productions and Showtime Management, it is onstage at Teatro, Montecasino in Fourways until 6 April 2025.