Review: Rakas Evan Hansen
Beloved Evan Hansen – A musical with great themes dazzles with its music at the Helsinki City Theatre
Dear Evan Hansen, the letter begins. Soon it falls into the wrong hands, and that is the beginning of a chain of misunderstandings and lies that changes Evan Hansen’s life.
How wonderful that it’s autumn again and it’s time for a grand musical! Helsinki City Theatre continues to roll out Broadway hits with the musical Dear Evan Hansen, which has won the Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Screenplay and Best Composition, among others. You can’t see it in New York anymore, but you can in Helsinki!
The musical has big themes. Loneliness, depression and anxiety, suicide, losing a child and being abandoned by the father. Communication problems within the family and disconnection between parent and child.
No wonder you cry, but you can still laugh in the stands.
Youth is a challenging time anyway, and it can be especially difficult if you don’t belong to a group. Evan Hansen (Julius Suominen in the premiere) has only one friend, Jared (Samuli Pajunen), who also defines himself more as a family acquaintance. Evan goes to school on anti-anxiety medication. When he falls from a tree and breaks his arm, no one notices. He can’t even get others to write his name on his hand cast. The single mother (Nina Tapio) often works in the evenings because money is tight – the father, who disappeared years ago, is distant. Evan finds strength in Zoe (Riikka Riikonen), with whom he has a crush. It’s just a shame that the encounters always go wrong because of Evan’s nervousness.
Evan’s therapist has urged the boy to write letters of encouragement to himself, and he obediently obeys. Soon, however, one of them falls into the wrong hands.
The Murphy family is also in pain. Connor’s son (Niki Rautén) uses drugs and skips school. Her parents can’t get a grip on her, and her sister Zoe is even afraid of her brother.
These two unwell boys meet briefly and surprisingly, and that is the beginning of a chain of events that leads to major misunderstandings and soon to a whole new phase of life for Evan.
The suddenly discriminated wallflower is known not only throughout the school, but also on social media. Evan becomes, without his own merit, the protagonist and a human being who benefits from the tragedy of others. Now he is someone whose ideas and company are interesting. There is an unintentional misunderstanding behind everything, but soon it becomes a lie that no longer feels possible – or necessary – to correct. Now things are finally good! However, the lie snowballs bigger and bigger until the end begins to look inevitable.
Still, it’s sweet to see Evan blossom. They find a direction and purpose for their life and are able to give up anxiety medication. More and more evenings are spent with the Murphys, and Evan finally gets to experience what it’s like to be surrounded by a family that has time and interest in her.
One of the most touching scenes is between Evan and Larry (Antti Timonen), Connor’s father. A son who has a distant relationship with his father and a father who had a distant relationship with his son get to do the usual father-son stuff for a while.
Still, in the end, your own mother is the most reliable rock who never abandons you.
The creators behind the musical Dear Evan Hansen include, for example, the songwriters of the hit musical La La Land, and the songs are excellent. Among the high-quality singers, Nina Tapio, Riikka Riikonen and Niki Rautén, who delighted in one of the main roles in the City Theatre’s musical Priscilla – Queen of the Desert last autumn, still stand out. There are a lot of fresh, young faces on stage, whose enthusiasm is transmitted to the audience.
In the premiere, Julius Suominen played Evan Hansen, who excellently conveyed the small gestures and expressions of a high school student’s anxiety, shyness and nervousness.