Dear Evan Hansen - Noel Coward

I can't help but think this show fits modern American audiences more. We must not underestimate the cultural differences between the USA and the UK. Subjects as "the victim role" and "anxiety" are perceived in a different way. Of course these are universal issues, but there are definitely cultural differences. I went to the USA a few weeks ago and truly, the youth there felt like aliens to me at times. People at the table next to me in a restaurant actually bragging about their victim roles and how it gets things done, people on public transport literally saying "Heeey, how's your anxiety today? Oh, I've been better, how's yours? Mwah....Like it's common or even essential to have anxiety because then you have a sort of safe space you can use in daily situations? It's bizarre. I've never seen anything like it. And not just 3 or 4 people, no, the whole journey long, everywhere I went.

The show felt jarring to me too. America may accept anxiety as a free pass for being mean and getting your way or feeling equal or a way of false attention, but I'm not exactly there yet. The way this show is written, and the "protagonist" receives a figurative pat on the shoulder/sympathy for doing so feels like some cult of world alienated people to me, trying to manipulate or to demand a sort of equality in a very twisted way. Like "This is your punishment, scary and bad world, this is what you get in return when you make us so insecure. Well, we don't care, because we can use anxiety to get sympathy anyway, so the laugh is on you". Twisted and not good.

By the way, I'm not saying that anxiety should be ignored or is not a serious issue, I know it can be a real problem, but the solution lies in people trying to understand and look into the causes and solutions more. This musical and the general public cult in the USA today is not helping.

Having seen it yesterday evening, you can add me to the chorus of „I‘m just too old for this“. Although honestly I think it‘s not an argument of being too old to understand teenage troubles or too old to get the deal with social media. I‘m not a 16 year old boy from Sheffield wanting to go to a prom in a dress, I‘m not a 12 year old boy from a Northern English mining village who wants to dance ballet, and yet I could suffer and feel for Jamie and Billy Elliot, I think DEH‘s problem is mostly bad writing. The show takes a long time to get going and we find out so very little about the teenagers involved apart from Evan. Connor especially is criminally underused. We never really hear from him why he struggles (struggled) with life so much he committed suicide, we never really learn more about Zoe except as Evan‘s object of affection, much less about Jared and Alana. The moment where Cynthia gives Evan Connor‘s tie ahead of his speech was screaming for a big solo for Evan, reflecting on what happened and telling the audience what he feels about the whole mess he‘s created. I was thoroughly bored by the second act because I felt nothing was at stake. This wasnt “will Jamie get to go to the prom / will Billy get into the Royal Ballet school and have this dream come true?“ - we know Evan‘s lies will have to be exposed, but do we really care for him enough to worry about him now? And then the saccharine ending - I wish American writing would have the guts more often to not drown stories in sugar. Leave Evan alone behind and head to college sadder but wiser, why not? I just didn‘t buy the whole forgiving mood, although I did like the last scene in the apple orchard when all the social media stuff was gone and people seemed to finally be living in the real world for five minutes. Speaking of, the whole of You will be found was another of those too-American-sugary things for me, considering the incredible destructive nature of social media with its cybermobbing and social witch hunts, here they act like it‘s all one big happy family which doesn‘t wash for me either.

I‘m also not a big fan of Paul/Pasek who rarely miss the chance to ruin a good melody with some obnoxious beat, but the music held up better than I had expected and the cast was fine, doing with the material what they can. I can definitely see how and why this musical speaks so much to young people today, in fact it made me think of how I felt in the early 90s when Rent arrived as such as blast of fresh air with a contemporary subject and contemporary music. I just can‘t help thinking that this had the potential to be so much better if they had sent the creatives back to the drawing board with what I feel is hardly more than a decent first draft.

I have much the same opinion as many of you in that I thought the plot was fairly indefensible. The difference on Broadway I really think largely came down to Ben Platt, who gave such an astonishing performance. His breath control in the singing alone was just beyond words, to go from soft (but perfectly pitched) and shy to full on belt which was also perfectly in key, within a bar or two, is not at all easy and he made it look so.

Just been listening to the Deluxe Edition of the US soundtrack.Some really great ‘extra’ tracks.Excellent stuff.

The anxiety discussion bothers me a little, but I’m still looking forward to seeing it in December. I love the Broadway recording. I’m currently off work with severe anxiety and I’m hoping I can recover from this flare-up before seeing the show, as I know a twitchy portrayal of mental illness is not going to make me feel any better!

I’m mystified by the anxiety /depression debate about this and how supposedly appalling Evan is. I took it that he , in the heat of the moment, created a lie to try and ease the suffering of the grieving parents- and then it just snowballed. And that everyone else around him, particularly the girl at his school, behaved awfully.

I do think though that it doesn’t really deal at all with his mental health issues at all, and instead just concerns itself with social media and it’s effects.

The ending also jars , suddenly everything is okay and lovely.

Probably because we live in a moment where lies and fake news are more timely topics than they were in 2015 when the show opened, but I think it's very hard not to be appalled by Evan's actions. He lies so quickly and so skilfully that it's difficult not to consider him a sociopath. The authors keep telling us that he's good-hearted and well-intended, but the truth is that we see him lie to obtain or at least to keep popularity, a family and a girlfriend. The fact that he faces no consequence for his actions and that on the contrary his lies are showed to be the source of new harmony seems to put the stamp of approval on this kind of behaviour. Good things come out of bad actions is a grim moral to a show.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago with Mark and thought that Lauren Ward was the only one to be really there, the rest of the cast struggled to different extents with the score and the characterization. And you can hardly blame them, since all the roles but Evan are just some kind of stock characters characterized by a single feature (the Angry Teenager™️, the Grieving Parents™️, the Struggling Single Mom™️, etc) rather than being fully developed people.

As a commentary on social media culture is shallow, as a representation of mental health issues is deeply problematic. The second act drags a bit but I for once really liked the glove song, I thought it was the only moment to be genuinely emotional without being emotionally manipulative (so big/so small, I'm looking at you!).

It's an enjoyable show, but leave your moral compass home.

Very wobbly, but think it’s a character choice. I didn’t notice it when I saw it last week, but I was so engrossed in his characterisation that I may have ignored it or accepted that he was doing it as part of the character. He grows more confident as the show goes on, and so he’s not this erratic the whole way through, and his singing is more controlled. Might be better if we could see his acting in this, would give us a better understanding.

^mr barnaby,thanks for the clarification.Much obliged....😴

What merchandise is available?

There’s programs, posters, magnets, mugs, the book and waving book, t shirts and hoodies but not the Connor cast hoodie, and cd

This pretty much nails how I feel about the show, especially the fact that nobody, other than Evan (and to a certain extent his mum IMO) have had any character development put into them.