The New York Times has poignantly described “Dear Evan Hansen” as “A gorgeous new musical for anyone with a beating heart”, and I believe that that statement flawlessly encapsulates the modern musical. I have certainly been caught up in the hype surrounding “Dear Evan Hansen”, especially considering the fact that I have already written an article here about it! However, I had the incredible opportunity to see the musical live a few weeks ago, and I wanted to return with a fresh perspective after witnessing the musical’s humor and heartbreak in person. While everybody may have differing opinions pertaining to “Dear Evan Hansen”, the experience was one that I will certainly not forget, and I only hope to inspire others in the same way that it inspired me.
The soundtrack to “Dear Evan Hansen” is gorgeous and easily accessible on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. However, like many other musicals, the dialogue that is omitted from the soundtracks can provide a multitude of new angles that the musical can be viewed from. For example, Ben Platt perfectly embodied the high-strung, eponymous Evan Hansen by blazing through speeches about sweaty hands, social anxiety, and the stress that comes with being a high school student. Will Roland, who played Jared Kleinman, also utilized his dialogue to inject comic relief and to make fun at Evan during the initial stages of Evan’s lie. However, as the plot becomes more convoluted, the dialogue becomes much less comical.
The most striking example of this for me was before my favorite song, “Good For You”, where Evan and his mother, Heidi, have a fight after they meet up at the Murphy household. Heidi is incensed after the Murphys offer to pay for Evan’s college tuition because it implies that they are poor and unable to be independent, and Evan does not understand why his mother is so concerned about his involvement with the Murphys because she is never around to begin with. This leads to Evan screaming at Heidi and shouting about how he knows he is a burden to her and that he knows he is the worst thing that has ever happened to her. I still remember the impact that this scene had on me; I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me because as someone who sees a bit of themselves in Evan Hansen, the words were painfully relatable and expressed all of the underlying tension in the mother to son relationship.
Ben Platt delivered many more heartbreaking moments in songs such as “Waving Through a Window” and “Words Fail”. While his emotion is easily heard during the soundtrack, it is a revolutionary experience to watch how he makes Evan Hansen so real and relatable. Whether he is nervously picking at his nails or singing with tear tracks cutting through his makeup, every audience member can identify with his expressions of anxiety and regret. While his performances in “Words Fail” and “You Will Be Found” left plenty of the people around me crying, I managed to stay dry-eyed until the song “So Big/So Small”. Immediately following “Words Fail”, this song centers around Heidi gently telling Evan that she saw Evan’s letter to himself and that she had no idea how much he was hurting. She proceeds to sing to him about how she will be there for him no matter what, and that all of the pain he is currently experiencing will eventually fade away. When she sings the lines “Your mom isn’t going anywhere, your mom is staying right here...”, I gripped onto my mother’s hand as Evan hesitantly leaned forward, then buried his face into Heidi’s chest as they embraced. My mother and I both had tears in our eyes as we found the importance of connection during that moment, and I am so grateful to have experienced it with her.
Even though I saw “Dear Evan Hansen” almost two weeks ago, I still think about it and all of the emotions that it brought up within me. The fact that it brought me and so many others to tears truly solidified the importance of connection and how it is an essential part of being human. After the first act, all I could think about is how much I wanted to create something like this one day; I truly want to inspire people and to make them feel heard in the very same way that “Dear Evan Hansen” did for me.
