With the recent death of composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, many felt that the future of musical theater was thrown into doubt. But we need not fret over the fate of this quintessentially American art form with the emergence of the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Having shown impressive promise with Dogfight and A Christmas Story, the duo proclaimed their mature arrival with Dear Evan Hansen, the Tony Award-winning tale of a friendless high school misfit who gains sudden popularity when a lie he tells goes viral on social media.
On Broadway five seasons ago, the show was dominated by the remarkable debut of Ben Platt in the title role. At the Kravis Center this week, the national tour is headed by Stephen Christopher Anthony, more than up to the vocal and emotional demands of the fraught character, but a mere mortal. And as a result, the production becomes more of an ensemble piece, less of a star turn, and the overall impact of the material is better for it.
The story’s McGuffin is a letter Evan is assigned to write to himself by his therapist, attempting to convince himself that today will be a good day. But another loner at school, Connor Murphy, whose default mode is bullying, snatches the letter from Evan, taunts him about it and stuffs it in his pocket.
That is where the letter is found after the anguished Connor commits suicide. So Connor’s parents jump to the logical conclusion that Evan and their son were secret friends. The socially awkward Evan has two default modes — apologizing and lying – and he cannot manage to tell the truth to the Murphys in their grief.
Evan all but moves in with the affluent Murphys, becoming a surrogate son to them and spending time with their daughter Zoe. He has long had a crush on her, but never had the courage to approach her previously.
At school, when other students hear of Evan’s relationship with Connor, his stock rises. He not only eulogizes Connor at an all-school assembly – a recording of which goes viral on the Internet – but he becomes co-president of the Connor Murphy Project, begun by a tech-savvy student named Alana to keep Connor’s memory alive and to cash in on it by hawking memorabilia of the deceased.
Of course there have been other shows about negotiating the treacherous shoals of high school, but none with the authenticity and complexity of Dear Evan Hansen. Credit the songwriters and the book writer, Steven Levenson, who developed the original story over years on the regional and non-profit circuit. (And compare it to a show like Mean Girls, which covers similar bullying territory so superficially.)
Pasek and Paul’s score has a gentle pop sound, with aptly conversational and colloquial lyrics. Self-conscious Evan has difficulty expressing himself, but alone, in interior musical monologue, he can be quite articulate and poetic.
Among the standouts in the supporting cast are Alessandro Costantini as Evan’s sidekick Jared, who cynically forges Connor’s would-be e-mails to Evan, and Jessica E. Sherman as Evan’s stressed-out single mom, who delivers a heart-rending penultimate number/embrace of her wayward son.
Capping the show’s uniqueness is David Korins’ scenic design, complemented by Peter Nigrini’s projections – a nearly continuous vertical scroll of cyber-images and horizontal pan of verbiage.
It would be hard to imagine anyone not identifying with at least some of Evan Hansen’s journey. For who among us has not felt insecure and alone at some point in our lives. That Pasek, Paul and Levenson have captured those feelings so well is remarkable. That they have done so in a musical is astonishing.
DEAR EVAN HANSEN, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday. $56-$121. 561-832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.