Yes, there are troubling issues in Dear Evan Hansen. But they are definitely there on purpose. And, while it's true that Evan never really ever gets consequences for his manipulative behavior, that may be an accurate picture of the rather un-moral facebook society his generation is growing up in, where the buzz of social media and of reality tv shows have the kids unaware and unable to experience themselves as human beings with responsibility for their actions.
I know people who walked out of the show after the first act, obviously feeling not only disgust with Evan's lack of heroism but with the writers' similar seeming obtuseness about his lack of empathy.
That said, we must remember that Hamlet, likewise seriously disturbed and alienated from his world, similarly wreaks havoc on the lives of those closest to him, including such relative innocents as Ophelia, Polonius, and Laertes. Of course, he gets a chance to grieve Ophelia and beg forgiveness of Laertes in that moving pre-duel scene. In that play, the brat grows up. And he also has a very real moral imperative for why he's so out of step (his father). But my point is that self-involved protagonists who cause damage to others definitely can work. Look what the James Dean character does to his brother in "East of Eden."
I think Dear Evan Hansen relies a lot on the connection The protagonist has with the audience through his song-soliloquies, as Hamlet does in his solo-speeches. And the actor who plays Evan is quite amazing in his emotional nakedness. Maybe it has to do with how much slack you cut Evan for him feeling so desperately alone. I cut him a lot. Especially because Zoe and her family, though well-acted, aren't written very "deep," despite their obvious griefs.
I do wonder if Dear Evan Hansen would be enhanced if Evan were played by an actor of a type for which the audience has a tendency to grant automatic slack. Like if he and his mother were not poor white people but poor African-Americans. I would like to see that, with the script exactly as it is and the element of the post-racial racial divide never articulated in language, which would be realistic for this day and age. |
