Before I even turn the key
Before I make the mistake
Before I lead with the worst of me
***
We start with stars in our eyes
We start believing that we belong
But every sun doesn't rise
And no one tells you where you went wrong.
I returned last night from a four-day weekend in New York, where I'd decided to see a Broadway musical. You know, a Broadway musical, like Oklahoma! or The King and I ? But instead, I dropped by the Music Box Theatre and saw the hit show Dear Evan Hansen.
A musical about a friendless high school senior who suffers from a severe social anxiety disorder.
I knew what I was getting into, obviously. I did read some reviews and a synopsis before buying my ticket. And I've seen shows about disturbed kids before -- notably the excellent Broadway play about an autistic boy, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But none, perhaps, with the same emotional impact.
Evan Hansen is a boy who is incapable of reaching out to anyone. A continuing gag, which symbolizes his entire personality, is his fear of shaking hands with people because of his sweaty palms. (Hey Evan -- son -- lots of teenage boys have sweaty hands -- it's like acne!) As his song "Waving Through a Window," quoted above, suggests, he is paralyzed in his ability to interact socially, because his mind is constantly spinning -- as his monologues reveal -- with all the things that might go wrong.
A classmate -- a totally unlikeable fellow named Connor -- commits suicide, and Connor's parents are led to believe, through a number of mistakes, that Evan and Connor were secretly best friends. The parents are overjoyed, not wanting to believe that their son had gone through his short life hated by everyone.
Evan goes along with the mistake, at first out of sympathy for the parents and feeling that a little white lie or so could do no harm. Classmates are moved by the story. Evan's devotion to his friend goes viral on the internet, and he ends up chairing a drive to collect $50,000 for an apple orchard to be planted in Connor's memory.
Evan discovers he's suddenly popular, and Connor's sister -- on whom he's long had a secret crush -- falls in love with him. At the end of the first act, he sings the show's rousing anthem "You Will Be Found," and the curtain closes on an ode to friendship .
When you need a friend to carry you
And when you're broken on the ground
You will be found.
In the second act, some people begin realizing that Evan's story is contradictory in places, that it doesn't hold together. Panicked, he eventually confesses to Connor's parents. They turn against him, his classmates turn against him, the internet turns against him. Even his mother, whom he had criticized for not always being there for him, is alienated. Evan stands alone -- deserted by everyone -- seemingly in worse shape than when the play began. Dramatically, but maybe not commercially, a fine point at which the show might have ended.
But there is an epilogue, a year later, when Evan meets with Connor's sister. She tells him that what he did probably saved her parents' marriage. He decides his impact on the world was more good than bad, and accepts himself for who he is, anxiety and all. "Today at least you're you and ... that's enough," he sings in the finale.
The epilogue has been criticized as an unrealistic attempt to sugar-coat the ending. It has also been criticized as glossing over the terrible -- and, in the end, self-serving -- lies that Evan told, and his emotional exploitation of others. That it somehow absolves Evan and gives him a "free pass" to a form of happiness.
I suppose I agree to an extent with both criticisms. But what is more painful is the realization that, although Evan now accepts his damaged personality, he apparently is doomed to a lifetime of isolation and passivity. Unless one chooses to believe that his moment in the sun, his experience with friendship and with a girl's love, will ultimately give him the self-confidence to assert himself in the future in ways less potentially harmful to others. Maybe.
The show won six Tonys in 2017, including Best Musical and Best Lead Actor. The actor playing 17-year-old Evan -- the fourth to play the part since 2017 -- is Andrew Barth Feldman, a 16-year-old singer/actor who is appearing for the first time on Broadway. (Previous "Evans" were in their twenties.) The kid can act, to devastating effect.
I've discussed the musical in this blog, after the fact, in my typically detached and rational manner. At the time I saw it, I found it emotionally overwhelming. I had tears in my eyes as the musical neared its end.
Which is to be expected, and not unusual. But the kid sitting next to me -- a high school student who had been talking gregariously and cheerfully with his friends before the show -- was sobbing loudly and convulsively during the last fifteen minutes or so. It was that kind of theater experience.
Highly recommended. But it's not like most musicals you may have seen in the past. Like Oklahoma!--
Oh what a beautiful day,
I've got a wonderful feeling,
Everything's going my way.
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