Review: DEAR EVAN HANSEN Is Still Waving, Searching and Yanking on Heartstrings

Dear Evan Henerson. Today (or tonight) is going to be a great experience at the Ahmanson Theatre, and here's why. Oh, you may experience ruts, setbacks and petty annoyances aplenty in your everyday life, but no matter how down you may feel, nothing will serve as a more effective pick-me-up than spending a couple of hours in the company of seven people as depressed, damaged or dysfunctional as the characters of DEAR EVAN HANSEN. Messed up though they certainly are, at least they've got a superb score through which to express their broken-ness; maybe you've heard some of these songs before? And this director Michael Grief seems to have a pretty good handle on what he's doing as well. There's more to say. Hopefully words won't fail. They will be found in the paragraphs below. Keep reading. Sincerely, Me.

The announcement that DEAR EVAN HANSEN had set a September 18 closing date for its Broadway run could not have been welcome news to the legions of casual fans and DEH-heads who have embraced this multiple award-winning homage to misfits, misguided ingenuity and the power/danger of isolation. When the final curtain comes down, DEAR EVAN HANSEN will have played nearly six years, a period that spans the shutdown of Broadway due to the COVID pandemic. No mean feat, this, although frankly given the electricity around its 2017 opening, I would have predicted a lengthier run.

The North American tour roars expertly on, playing the Ahmanson Theatre through July 31. All of the faces (and voices) have changed a few times over since Ben Platt, Rachel Bay Jones and the musical's original cast stormed Broadway. The current production is the musical's second stint in L.A. With its award-winning book by Steven Levenson and score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, it offers the same gut punches along with assurances that life for the Hansens, the Murphys and the millions of nameless, faceless lonely souls out there on the internet may yet be OK. As we continue to emerge from the carnage and isolation of COVID, that's not a bad message to spread.

Here's one thing that audiences have learned from DEAR EVAN HANSEN, particularly in light of Platt's decision to re-up for the movie: the title character needs to convince us that he could (or should) still be in high school. Depression, loneliness and feelings of being a misfit loser may indeed be feelings that folks of every age share, but the teen years are the absolute worst, and whoever dons that cast and purple-striped shirt has to convince us that he's of an age where he is still figuring it all out. Anthony Norman, who shares the role with Jeffrey Cornelius, looks a bit older, but he comes off younger. Evan's gawkiness and social anxiety, which plays schticky and occasionally even for laughs in the wrong hands, is entirely credible here. When Norman speaks, cries or sings, we believe that this character is in a vortex of loneliness that he has created and from which he has no easy exit.

He's hardly alone. For the plot un-initiated, a pep talk note that Evan has written to himself as a therapy assignment (hence the show's title) ends up in the hands of classmate and school bully, Connor Murphy (Nikhil Saboo), who is even more friendless than Evan Hansen himself. Through a not-exactly-plausible chain of misunderstandings, after Connor takes his life, Evan emerges as the deceased boy's closest friend. Through his efforts to keep the sham going and keep Connor's memory alive, Evan experiences a popularity he had never previously experienced. He also ends up reaping the generous good graces of Connor's parents Larry and Cynthia Murphy (John Hemphill and Lili Thomas) and of their daughter - Evan's crush - Zoe (Alaina Anderson). Ironies abound. Basically, Evan finds a family situation that is better than his own, but it's all based on a lie. Meantime, the gap widens between our hero and his concerned and overworked mother Heidi (Coleen Sexton) who, before all this goes down, had done her fair share of ignoring Evan as well.

Until he actually gets into the Murphy home, Evan spends a lot of his time alone on his computer and part of the inventiveness of Greif's staging is the presentation of the visual landscape of DEAR EVAN HANSEN. As fashioned by scenic designer David Korins, production designer Peter Nigrini and lighting designer Japhy Weidman, we are in an open space of isolation consisting of darkly lit walkways shot through with beams of light backed by columns loaded by social media posts. The boops and beeps drive home how very small a kid like Evan truly is...until, that is, his lie goes viral.

The posthumous recreation of Connor Murphy is problematic on a lot of fronts. The members of his immediate family knew Connor as a brutish, pot-smoking young thug. His parents couldn't reach him, and his sister stopped trying long ago, so now they're contending with a person they never knew existed who claims that the kid who their greatest disappointment was actually someone's friend. That revelation is a lifeline to Connor's mother Cynthia, a brittle woman whose marriage to Larry is crumbling. The heart-wrenching first act number "Requiem," has Zoe, Larry and Cynthia all explaining why they can't mourn. It's followed not long after by "If I could Tell Her," an equally beautiful song through which Evan tries to redeem Connor in the eyes of his bitter sister and, Cyrano style, pouring out his own heart.

Evan's other "friends" have their own issues. Nerdy classmate Alana Beck, who didn't know Connor either, grabs onto the Connor Project like it's a liferaft. Jared Kleinman (Pablo David Laucerica), Evan's co-conspirator, is himself a misfit who treats Evan like dirt until he sees Evan's star on the rise. Our hero is not particularly vindictive, but payback is most certainly a beast.

Though Levenson's plotting is not exactly seamless, the characters and the music carry this through. From "Waving Through a Window" (an 11 o'clock number placed at the beginning of the show) to "So Big/So Small," Heidi's reconciliation with her estranged son, DEAR EVAN HANSEN never loses its grasp on our heartstrings. Sentimental, weepy and a bit manipulative, yes, but the show works.

The cast members are largely strong, keeping these characters relatable and feeling like they're actual people. Anderson, convincingly at war with Zoe's feelings of regret and bitterness, is a standout. Sexton takes Heidi from a bit clueless where Evan is concerned to roaringly and touchingly reclaiming her position in her son's life. Saboo brings out Connor's nastiness and the wisdom (and dark humor) of his ghost. Major props, by the bye, to Tara Rubin Casting and Kevin Metzger-Timson for bringing ethnically diverse actors to Broadway and touring companies of HANSEN.

And to those cynical enough to scoff at a show that has built its audiences around sentiments like "You still matter," "You will be found" or "Anybody have a map," yes, we get you. But when you listen to Norman singing "Waving Through a Window," even a theatergoers with the stoniest of hearts may find themselves wanting to be the one waving back.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN plays through July 31 at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Photo of Anthony Norman and Alaina Anderson by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

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