Evan Hansen is an isolated high school student with no friends and no life and on medication for social anxiety disorder- and he’s fallen out of a tree and broken his arm, now in plaster.
When his doctor prescribes that he writes a daily letter to himself – hence the show title Dear Evan Hansen – he is meant to say how good that day is going to be.
This simple letter writing device is the start of a spiralling story of deceit, loneliness, suicide and the search for connection that we can all resonate with.
A couple of brutal encounters with school bully and weirdo Connor are suddenly followed by Connor’s offstage suicide, but not before Connor snatches Evan’s letter which refers ambiguously to Connor’s sister Zoe and before he sarcastically signs Evan’s plaster cast as if they were best friends.
So the scene is set for Evan to try and connect – by inventing a deep friendship with Connor and with the help of two pupils fabricating a backstory of countless emails between the two – even suggesting a gay relationship at one point though this is abandoned as an idea.
Evan inveigles himself into Connor’s family, who almost adopt him as a replacement Connor, but the whole edifice unravels as it gets more and more complex.
And that’s the story – more or less. What makes this an an award-winning, must-see show is the central performance – here played brilliantly by Ryan Kopel, the soaring words and music of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the twisty turns of Steven Levenson’s book.
Morgan Large’s set is a miracle of frosted glass panels that slide across the back of the stage, and mirrors above and at the sides that break up the images of the characters much as their lives are breaking up. The multi-tiered screens depicting the viral and vile nature of the internet dominate from time to time and are breathtaking.
There’s a good supporting cast as Evan’s sometimes neglectful but struggling, single mother Heidi (Alice Fearn), Connor’s mother (Helen Anker), and notably love interest Zoe played at first raggedly and then lovingly by Lauren Conroy. Her angry song Requiem is one of several showstoppers.
Killian Thomas Lefevre as Connor mellows after death when he returns as a kind of puppet character manipulated by Evan and family friend – not real friend – Jared (played for full laughs by Tom Dickerson).
But on Ryan Kopel’s shoulders – which are mostly tensed up under his chin, rests the success of the show. His high-pitched singing voice adds to his vulnerability. I saw the Broadway original with Ben Platt, but this Evan, deftly directed by Adam Penford, presents a much more likeable character. Shy, in pain, damaged but always kind of loveable.
In his big Act One closer You Will Be Found he doesn’t disappoint, and while the show’s abrupt ending is for me less than satisfying – this is a smash hit musical for our age of fake news and the uncontrollable hatred we see daily on social media that will run and run – and I give it 4 out of 5 stars for that.
Dear Evan Hansen plays at Theatre Royal Brighton until Saturday, 19 October. More information HERE
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