A recurring theme that pops up in the musical Dear Evan Hansen is the idea of brokenness. Now, from the onset, this may not make sense when looking at the title of this series as some could attribute it to me mocking the musical but rather, I am trying to focus on what is so important about this musical and how it openly talks about mental health. Let me use a quote from Sondheim to help illustrate my point.
Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall
While this quote does not work one-hundred percent for what I want to convey, it does back up how when audiences go to the theater, they are brought into the world that they are seeing and sometimes that world may tackle issues that they don't know about or may have wished to avoid but we are now seeing musicals that are willing to discuss topics that we as a society may have been afraid to talk about before. Now, I'm not saying that Dear Evan Hansen is the first musical to tackle an important issue as that'd just be foolish and it's not even the first musical to tackle mental health as musicals such as Next to Normal came before it. (BTW, look up I Miss the Mountains from that show as it's just gut-wrenching)
What I am saying is that Dear Evan Hansen is the first musical I have ever related to in a way that feels real and raw and it sometimes scares me how much I related to the songs from this show So, where do we start? Perhaps by looking at Evan's personality. The Evan Hansen Wiki doesn't give us much but this first line does help.
Evan is a 17-year-old outcast in his senior year in high school, with severe social anxiety and a broken arm
Okay, so he views himself as an outcast and his social anxiety played a large factor in that and that is seen in one of his most iconic songs.
As this song shows that Evan would rather hide in the background and does not think he is worthy of being noticed. Yes, the song is saying that Evan wants someone to wave back at him but it's difficult, Evan has convinced himself that he doesn't belong and that no-one cares about him. That's where I come in because as you may recall in a previous blog I did about musicals and my life, I mentioned that I felt like Evan in high school and that partially comes from my autism. As explained here...
(People that are high-functioning autistic) ... have significant challenges which stand in the way of living a comfortable life, succeeding in work or romance, or achieving a sense of self-worth.
The self-worth part is the big thing I wanted to hone in on because that is where my relationship Evan starts. As we both struggle with understanding that we have value in this world. Now I did say that in the present tense and not the past-tense because there are still going to be days where I question my value and that is seen with Evan. Perhaps, even more in the novel based on the musical as that is presented from his point-of-view and the reader gets to hear every nagging thought that haunts Evan throughout the entire story and I have to say, that made my heart break for him even more. Now, something I can't comment on completely but I have seen in some performances is that Evan during the middle of this scene is approached by Zoe, the younger sister of Connor, the young man that will take his life and a girl that Zoe has a crush on. And Evan gets flustered around her.
Now on the surface, one could just chalk this up to Evan not knowing what to say to the girl that he likes and may know a bit too much about (Yeah, we'll talk about that, when we get to Zoe's entry in this series) but I think the flusteredness that Evan displays is more than him being caught off-guard by the girl he likes being nice to him. We can look at this question from the National Institute of Mental Health and check a yes to it.
Are you very self-conscious in everyday social situations?
So yes, we do see that Evan is uncomfortable in situations where he has to interact with people in the real world and hi, again. As that as was also me when I was this character's age. Also, I'm glad I found an image with that line from Zoe because it's true of Evan. He feels the need to apologize for little things before the big lie takes place and that I believe takes us back to the theme of this blog and how Evan views himself as broken. Years and years ago before I ever discovered my voiced and my seizures were so bad, I was a lot like Evan but worse as I would constantly call myself stupid and punch myself in the face as I called myself stupid because just as how Evan convinced himself that he didn't matter, I had convinced myself that I was stupid and that led me to believe I didn't matter. Which brings us to perhaps the hardest set of lyrics for me to swallow from this show.
Would they like what they saw?
Or would they hate it too?
These lines come from the song Words Fail and that song takes place after Evan reveals what he had done to Zoe and her family about lying of being a friend to Connor and forging emails between them.
Yeah, not exactly Evan's proudest moment but he did the right thing by coming clean but those two lines struck the deepest chord with me because I always had that sense if I put myself out there and made myself vulnerable, people would think of me as a loser and someone that isn't worth their time. This takes us back to the opening from Waving through a Window.
I've learned to slam on the brakeBefore I even turn the keyBefore I make the mistakeBefore I lead with the worst of me
As someone that questioned his self-worth before discovering his voice, I found it easier to retreat and not interact with people because if I didn't put myself out there, there was less of a chance of being judged. Even though, my brain convinced me that people were judging me. Yeah, it doesn't make sense but things like that, just don't make sense sometimes. Again, this takes us back to the idea of brokenness that I am hoping to explore throughout this series. At this point, I don't have much else to say other than that, this is going to be an emotional journey and it felt like the best place to start was to look at my relationship with Evan. Peace!
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