SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "Dear Evan Hanson"
You've probably all heard it before, right? In the summer, every time you opened the radio, the lively commercial telling you to watch the Broadway hit "Dear Evan Hansen" repetitively blasted. However, as you kept hearing it and finally looked it up on Youtube, this ultimately started your obsession, especially if you are as much of a Broadway show fan as myself.
However, when you finally got to the theatre, and you began to watch the show, you frustratingly realized the soundtrack that you have been listening to played in the wrong order than how you expected. Because of this, the events unfolded in the musical becomes a little more confusing, mixed up, and not as heartwarming as you expected.
The very premise of "Dear Evan Hansen" is that a very introverted boy — Evan Hansen — strives to make friends and get attention from his classmates and peers. As a nobody, Evan feels utterly invisible and wants to impress a girl he has had a massive crush on for years. Because of his introversion and social anxiety, he attends therapy regularly.
One day, as a therapy exercise, Evan is asked to boost his confidence by writing a letter to himself starting with "Dear Evan Hansen" about what great things that he expects to happen that day. However, due to an unfortunate course of events, the high school basketcase, Connor, commits suicide. Evan's letter addressed to himself is found amongst Connor's belongings and mistaken as Connor's suicide letter. This spurs the school, Connor's family, and the town to believe Evan and Connor were best friends. Riding off of this attention and feeling of acceptance, Evan perpetuates this lie until it gets blown out of proportion.
From the get-go, when only listening to the songs, it seemed that Evan had a very close friend named Jared. Thus, when I watched the musical, I expected to see a close friendship and the reassuring hope that even as an introvert, one can find someone who really cares about him/her.
However, in actuality, it turns out that Jared was only a "family friend" that did not want to be seen with Evan and thought Evan was a loser. In addition, he only wanted to monetarily profit off of Connor's death.
And, the most frustrating part was at the end, when the truth becomes revealed, Jared insists that he was Evan's friend all along and becomes hurt that Evan does not feel the same. At that moment, I became so frustrated.
If you establish at the beginning that you think that Evan is a loser, are only helping him for monetary gains, shut him out as a friend by insisting you are only "family friends," and not help Evan when things get blown out of proportion, what gives you the right to be "butt-hurt" because you've been SUCH an amazing friend to Evan. Get over yourself, Jared.
Another reason I could not stand the plot was that I found it absolutely disgusting some characters were profiting off of the death of Connor for such selfish reasons. One of the characters, Alana, did not personally know Connor but exploited his death to become a Club President and ran a blog in remembrance of Connor. She establishes her motivation is to write something extra on her resume for college.
However, when she wanted more "juicy" content to increase viewership for the blog, she publishes Connor's "fake" suicide letter or Evan's letter he wrote for the therapy exercise online without the consent of Connor's grieving family. This causes outrage and social criticism directed to the family. Nevertheless, she justifies her actions by explaining she doesn't want people to forget Connor because she understands what it is like to be forgotten. However, if she was REALLY creating a memorial for Connor, she would respect the family and maintain their privacy and do it solely to help the family instead of a fancy title for a college resume.
In addition, she was so focused on making everyone feel remembered, why didn't she make friends with Evan, who suffered from social anxiety and depression, before he was even noticed by this whole incident. In actuality, it really felt like she didn't care and was just trying to justify her terrible actions. Her actions were so ingenuine, selfish, and unempathetic that it was absolutely sickening.
Ultimately, expecting a heartwarming ending with the realization that everyone should not be forgotten and that introversion will not and cannot stop one from having a wonderful life, I was thoroughly disappointed and upset. When the truth becomes revealed to Connor's family that Connor's suicide letter was actually Evan's letter for a therapy exercise and that Connor and Evan were not best friends, all hell breaks loose. Yet, Connor's family ultimately still keeps Evan's secret. Nevertheless, Evan loses the love of his life, all his friends, and self-respect. For the terrible mistake that he makes, he spends his life repenting. And, in the end, he still alone and introverted.
What this musical ultimately said to me was: The introvert will always remain alone, people are selfish and disgusting, and the truth causes you to lose the girl.
