Review: DEAR EVAN HANSEN at Broadway Rose

DEAR EVAN HANSEN, now running at Broadway Rose, is a multiple Tony Award-winning musical about an anxious, depressed, and profoundly lonely high schooler who gets swept into an extraordinary situation when a classmate named Connor Murphy dies by suicide. A letter Evan had written to himself ends up in Connor's pocket, and Connor's grieving parents assume it was written by their son. Rather than correct them, Evan tells a small lie to ease their pain – that he and Connor were friends. That lie grows. Suddenly, Evan has a second family, a social life, even a girlfriend. But the foundation is deceit, and castles built on sand don't stand for long.

The show's themes are rich and timely: grief, loneliness, acceptance, and the way social media warps our sense of everything. The music, by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, is gorgeous (one of its Tonys was for Best Score). But the whole thing hinges on one thing: you have to be able to root for Evan.

My previous experience with the show was a national touring production that left me cold. I know I wasn’t alone in this because the woman sitting behind me at Broadway Rose mentioned that she’d also seen the touring production and walked away unmoved. The problem was the portrayal of Evan. Rather than a genuinely anxious teenager caught in a spiral he didn't know how to stop, he had come across as manipulative and twerpy. This show simply doesn’t land if you can't find compassion for the kid at the center of it.

Broadway Rose found that kid. Thanks to a spectacular cast and Abe Reybold’s direction, I finally understand why DEAR EVAN HANSEN won the Tony for Best Musical.

Ryan Burton, who plays Evan, had me almost from the moment he appeared onstage. By the second song ("Waving Through a Window," Evan’s first solo and probably the show's best-known number), I was crying. He is heartbreaking in the truest sense: you recognize him. The desperate wanting, the crippling anxiety that keeps him hiding in his room. He's someone you knew in high school. Someone you might know now. Burton doesn't play Evan as either a victim of his own life or a schemer in someone else’s. He plays him as a person, and that makes all the difference.

The rest of the cast is equally strong. Erin Tamblyn is fabulous as Evan's mom Heidi, a single mother working nights as a nurse while taking paralegal courses, doing everything she can for a son she doesn't quite know how to reach. Her Act Two solo, "So Big / So Small," is a gut punch.

Cuin Moore is excellent as Connor Murphy (the classmate whose death sets everything in motion) returning in Evan's imagination, and Sophie MacKay brings her lovely voice to Zoe Murphy, Connor's younger sister. Courtney Fero, who charmed us all as Reno Sweeney in last year's Anything Goes, is equally good here as Cynthia Murphy, Connor's mother, aching to believe her son was more than the angry, troubled boy she lost. Ryan Reilly is affecting as Connor's father Larry, a man quietly crushed under his own guilt over his relationship with his son.

Brady Allen is well-cast as Jared Kleinman, who helps Evan fake the friendship with Connor, but then finds himself sidelined as Evan's social star rises, while Azhia Ellis brings dimension to Alana Beck, the overachieving but also socially isolated student who inserts herself into the story because she, too, feels invisible.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN is a show about being seen – about how desperately we need it, and what we're willing to do to get it. Go see it (especially if the touring production left you cold – this one will change your mind).

DEAR EVAN HANSEN runs through April 19. Some performances have been added, but availability is extremely limited. Details and tickets here.