Review: Rakas Evan Hansen

Touching and fresh Dear Evan Hansen The protagonist of the musical written by Steven Levenson, Evan Hansen, is an insecure, socially awkward, lonely high school student who, on the advice of a therapist, writes letters of encouragement to herself. The boy’s father is not around and the busy single mother tries her best to take care of her son.

One day, something happens that unites two marginalized young people; Evan and Connor. Connor takes one of Evan’s letters with him, in which he confesses to liking Connor’s sister Zoe.

When the letter is discovered after Connor’s suicide, his mother and father assume that their son wrote a letter to Evan, that he and Evan were good friends. Although Evan’s intentions to correct the mistake are sincere at first, little by little he has become entangled in the web of a spider of lies. This is the beginning of a whirlwind of events that centers on Evan, the school community, and Connor’s family, and takes on comical features.

The performance is once again a great demonstration of HKT’s professionalism. The script, the catchy melodies, the music, the direction are all skillfully done. The young actors come into their own and shine with talent in every cell: Julius Suominen is the embodied and phenomenal Evan, the ever-charismatic Niki Rauten is the multidimensional Connor. Riikka Riikonen Zoe is energetic and sensitive.

Adolescence is a challenging time, and it can be especially difficult if you don’t belong to a group. Beloved Evan Hansen is a story about the difficulty of growing into oneself, loneliness and yet also the power and hope of self-discovery. The brilliance of the starry sky of life comes from the fact that we understand that we are not alone. Whether we are teenagers or adults.

I sincerely hope that especially the target group of the performance, young people, would get to see and experience the musical. At least my own sons enjoyed the performance to the fullest, even though they said a few less songs would have been good.

Dear Evan Hansen is a delight to the eye, a delight to the ears and moving, but also wise and thought-provoking. It may have more to say about teenage nausea, anxiety, loneliness, parenting and social media madness than any themed lecture or research on the subjects.