Dear Evan Hansen – Review – Leeds Grand Theatre

By Gail Schuster, November 2024

Wow! No wonder this musical has won so many accolades! It lays claim to six Tony awards and three Oliviers which include the prestigious New Musical award. All the more remarkable for a show which deals with difficult subjects including social anxiety, isolation, suicide, grief and mental health issues. This makes it sound like it might be a difficult watch, and indeed the audience is put through the emotional wringer. Some people may be affected by the subjects examined, but it is full of hope and humour too. The tone of the production is not judgemental and portrays the characters and the motivations for their behaviour in an understanding way.

The story follows a young high school student, Evan Hansen, who has no friends and suffers from social anxiety. He is trying to work through his problems with medication and therapy, which includes writing a letter to himself every day. One of these letters ends up in the possession of a fellow pupil, Connor, a misunderstood, lonely and difficult young person, who takes his own life. It is this twist of fate which is the catalyst for his life changing when he claims he was Connor’s friend.

Ryan Kopel, who plays the part of Evan, was an absolute joy to watch. He portrayed the angst of a lonely teen perfectly and was on stage almost constantly. I lost count of the number of songs he sang or participated in. I particularly liked the poignancy of ‘Waving Through a Window’. It sums up perfectly the loneliness and sense of being on the outside for those who don’t fit in.

“Very touching”

Alice Fearn and Helen Anker, who have both been in popular soap operas, took the roles of the mothers of Evan and Connor. Both women had their flaws, but we sympathised with the over stretched at work, single mum, who had little time for her anxious adolescent and the mother grieving for her son, who she wanted to get to know posthumously. Both actors gave strong performances. Fearn’s feelings towards what her son had done were explored in ‘Good for You’, which is when Evan’s new life, brought about by his deception, had started to unravel.

One scene which I found very touching was when Larry, Connor’s father, actor Richard Hurst, was showing Evan how to break in a baseball glove. Evan’s father had left when he was very young and so he had never had that father son relationship but neither had Larry, as his son had rejected him. It was a heart-warming moment in which both characters were getting what they most wanted.

Killian Thomas Lefevre and Lauren Conroy were wonderful in their roles as the Murphy family siblings, Connor and his hard-pressed sister Zoe. Conroy portrayed Zoe’s struggle to understand her feelings towards her brother and his death well in ‘Requiem’.

I was not familiar with the songs in this production before I went to see it, but it is full of corkers, which is not surprising when you learn that they were written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. They wrote ‘City of Stars’ from La La Land and ‘This is Me’ from The Greatest Showman and were responsible for ‘Dogfight’ as well. Dear Evan Hansen is a very modern musical and includes current issues.

“Creative and imaginative”

Among those current issues are the examination of why people profess friendship with people who have died, as this is a common phenomenon. Social media plays a role in this, and it is put under the spotlight during the production, both in its use by young people but also quite literally in the set design.

Morgan Large, the set designer, is to be congratulated on a creative and imaginative design which cleverly uses sliding windows and mirrors to reduce or amplify what is happening on stage. This includes the intelligent use of technological innovation, such as large scale led panels. These panels were used to create the sense of lack of control and being overwhelmed when Evan’s speech at school was filmed, put online and went viral.

This is a musical which is thought provoking as well as entertaining and one which will move and delight audiences up and down the country with this current tour. The crowd in Leeds Grand Theatre certainly loved it last night and rewarded it with a standing ovation.

‘Dear Evan Hansen’ is at Leeds Grand Theatre until 9th November
images: Marc Brenner