“Dear Evan Hansen”

“Dear Evan Hansen” captures the agonies of youth, allows the songs to grow out of the
action and boasts a great role, here memorably taken by Sam Tutty, for its lead actor. He
shines remarkably as the lonely student who fabricates a friendship with a dead boy.
Throughout the story you keep thinking whether he does that to support the dead boy’s parents
or to gain affection from the people around. The scenery seems unsophisticated at first sight,
but it perfectly conveys the incomparable ambience of the musical. The play establishes a
personal connection with the audience from the very first scene of a boy writing a letter to
himself. Sam Tutty (starring as Evan Hansen) holds the stage, leading us through agonies of
a teenager suffering from social anxiety. Rebecca McKinnis is tremendous as Heidi Hansen,
Evan’s mother, the only parent I’ve ever seen being aware of her son’s mental problems and
doing her best to help. It is worth mentioning that every actor here is effective in their role and
the leading actors’ stage presence cannot be left unnoticed.
“Dear Evan Hansen” is a Broadway award-winning musical, and I am a poor Belarusian
student, so I didn’t have a chance to immerse into the atmosphere of it’s live performance.
Even though I’ve watched its pirated recording with unclear video taken from an aisle seat, I
found it absolutely riveting. It pushed all the right emotional buttons, becoming not just a
delightful production, but a thought-provoking performance. It keeps you gripped from the
very first lines. The musical’s intriguing plot touches on a wide range of subjects. It shows
how an elaborate fiction can help Evan overcome his sense of isolation. The story also
illustrates the way grief allows families to mythologise the dead and how the internet can turn
fake news into assumed fact: people willingly subscribe to something called “The Connor
Project” based entirely on a spurious relationship. Every dialogue provides content for
ongoing discussion and even a romantic subplot doesn’t spoil the moment (though they often
do).
The performance tugged at my heartstrings and haunted me long after I’ve watched the
musical. I’m not exaggerating here; I have a bunch of the musical’s songs downloaded and
even know some of them by heart. Coming to the topic of music, some musicals make the
crucial mistake of making their thespians lip-sync during the performance. “Dear even
Hansen” boasts its ravishing songs performed live. They win over the audience with both their
strong sound and the universal message that they carry. The songs, mostly in a pop-rock
genre, seem to happen instinctively rather than being carefully planted. “Requiem”, in which
the Murphy family articulate their complex reactions to Connor’s death, is especially
haunting, and “Waving Through a Window”, where Evan explains he is “always on the
outside looking in”, deftly captures the dilemma of the social loneliness of the teenager.
Nevertheless, there is something that the show misses, because it lacks the courage to
admit that severe anxiety is not so easily cured. But this doesn’t spoil the performance and the
audience still gasp and clap in appreciation.
 “Dora: the sexual neuroses of our parents”

To start with, it wasn’t supposed to be a total flop. The reviews were quite favorable,
promising social drama with a whole bouquet of thought-provoking ideas, which appeal to the
viewer on many levels.
Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?
It was a primere in Belarus, originally written by a Swedish play write, so I had two
tickets in stall (thank god I got them for free from my father). Adding to my failure, I invited
my boyfriend to show how intellectually developed I am.
Well, I started to feel like walking out just as the curtains went up, but I my legs were
numb. The scenery was shocking. It looked like guts arranged in some terrifying form. And
there was no change of scenery during the play. It seemed like the plot was based on a
misinterpretation of Nabokov’s Lolita with a young girl having sexual intercourse with a 40-
year old man who was obsessed with her scent. The starring actress delivered her lines quite
charismatically though, the main heroine’s presence binded the show together and
compensated for its superficial faults. Elena Barsukova as starring actress seemed to get into
the skin of her character, but that was the plot that let her talent down. The rest of the cast
were dramatically unconvincing, grotesque even. The actor who played the doctor was rattling
his text and looked uncomfortable so the performance would be much better without him.
Strange unsuitable music was another contribution to Dora’s flop.
The plot lacked clarity as we were supposed to put some thought in it to discover the
hidden sense. But if you want to hear my opinion, it was rather weak and the whole
performance deserved only some polite applause. I wish there had been an interlude so I
could have escaped from that earlier. Nevertheless, I can’t deny they gripped audience’s
attention, I could not move my eyes from the scene and drank in every word though not
willing to do it.
After all this experience I was sure my boyfriend would break up with me. Well, I
definitely would. So the performance haunted us both long after its end.