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Regional Reviews: St. Louis Dear Evan Hansen Also see Richard's reviews of Hairspray, God of Carnage and The Wasp
But typically I'd rather go to some weird little play, so I'd managed to avoid seeing this blockbuster from 2015 about high school madness till now. The joke, of course, is that Dear Evan Hansen feels exactly like a weird little play, even with a two-hour and forty five minute run-time. And this production boasts a great six-piece band, conducted by Jason Eschhofen, in the large auditorium of the gargantuan Third Baptist Church in mid-town St. Louis. Dear Evan Hansen first opened at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. before moving (appropriately) to Second Stage Theatre, Off-Broadway, in New York, and then to Broadway's Music Box at the end of 2016, where it ran for nearly six years. At the Tonys in 2017 the show won six awards, including Best Book, Score, and Musical. And this St. Louis production boasts a director who also does the sets, lights, projections, and costumes as well, which (as the comedienne Anna Russell used to say) makes him "a regular José Ferrer." But the play, with a book by Steven Levenson with score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, almost works like some later, lost Woody Allen comedy, stygian and astringent and quietly uproarious, thanks to Aadi Kadam's earnest freak-out performance and the way he stumbles through the most solemn of jams imaginable. Evan is swallowed up by the desperation of a grieving (but perhaps too wealthy and sophisticated to be sympathetic) Murphy family. And it's no wonder he is so plagued with anxiety: everyone around him seems to have been put into his life for the sole purpose of building up his own discomfort. Evan's sincere but detailed angst (over trying to soothe the Murphys, the elegant "one percent" survivors of a teen suicide) steadily filters out into the audience. But his confabulation resonates with the familiar cringing terror made famous by the star and director of films like Hannah and Her Sisters and Annie Hall. Don't change a thing, though, the end result is highly impressive. Heather Matthews (who was so great this spring in Clayton Community Theatre's Man of LaMancha) is outstanding as Evan's divorced mother, constantly running off to work or to class as he gets caught up in an increasingly complicated fantasy, which he's just as quick to avoid discussing with her. It all starts when an unhinged schoolmate bullies Evan and ostentatiously signs his famous arm cast, creating a false image of friendship, but also presaging the classmate's reckless demise. After that, the Murphy parents are not merely despairing or hopeless. Instead, they project a vastly broader philosophical awareness, which makes it easier for us, but only heightens the alienation of their daughter (deliciously complex Peyton Bach). And in spite of his youth, Cam Bopp is dazzling as the jagged and doomed Connor Murphy: wobbling dangerously on multiple levels at once. Later on, the ghost of Connor reappears in the form of Evan's guilty conscience. But just shortly after his death, there's a funny, inspired moment where Evan's friend, bratty but computer savvy Jared, played by Camden Walton, implausibly begins to transform the memory of Connor into something like a harmless, cuddly bunny rabbit as Evan's false story begins to snowball out of control. It's quite a change-up for the actor Mr. Bopp, as an avatar in the scene, and he turns sunny on a dime for a jarring instant. And Mr. Walton helps a lot as Jared, lightening the mood throughout. Grace Seidel again draws us into a new vault of her own soul as Connor's mourning mother Cynthia–Take Two Productions gave her another unexpected role last year in Merrily We Roll Along, and both times she has become entirely different characters, which is something you don't really expect in local theatre. The fine actor Jonathan Hey, as Cynthia's husband Larry, always seems to have a sneakiness in his onstage presentation; you first glimpse his gently precise characters from afar, before they pounce like a lion on the veldt. The chorus works beautifully, and the two younger women in the main cast are also excellent, Ms. Bach as Connor's stunned sister, and Basil Hand as Evan's idealistic partner in changing the world on Connor's behalf. Their earnest social media campaign goes fantastically out of control before intermission, thanks to director Peirick. And then, near the very end, things turn inside-out once more, revealing the true magic of this powerful show. None of them "aspires" to be funny, except for Camden Walton, who's great as Jared. But somehow in this production, in the Murphys' need to grab onto some recognizable form of grief, something resembling a comedy of errors arises, structurally, at the very edge of visible light–silently to be admired though very much "evanescent." Dear Evan Hansen, produced by Take Two Productions, runs through June 28, 2026, at the Third Baptist Church's Johnson Hall, 620 N. Grand (enter on Washington Ave.), St. Louis MO. For tickets and information, please visit www.taketwoproductions.org. Cast: The Take Two Band Production Staff: |
