wonderfulwizard11 said: "Went to see this tonight- spoilers below for those who care or haven't seen it.
Prior to tonight, I had heard very little about this show, but I knew that the title character dealt with social anxiety and that got me very interested in the show. I've dealt with social anxiety for a number of years now, and while it's not as debilitating as Evan's is (and truthfully, es excellent as Platt is, all the tics felt excessive in a sort of performative way), I was very intrigued to see a musical that deal with it. Curiously, I don't think I've ever had a more puzzled reaction to a show. There's some great work being done by the cast, especially from Rachel Bay Jones and Jennifer Laura Thompson, and I cried a few times, but ultimately I was kind of upset with how the show addresses suicide and mental illness.
The premise of the plot was almost completely unbelievable to me, though apparently it was based off of a real incident, so I guess I can give it a pass, even if I never really bought that everyone would so easily fall for Evan's lie. But I just cannot get over that Evan suffers virtually no retribution for his actions. While it's arguable that his intentions start off as noble, he ends up using the memory of a severely troubled kid in order to make friends, get a surrogate family, and worst of all, start dating the sister of the the same person who killed himself. I guess his social anxiety is supposed to excuse his actions to a certain point, but it is on a core level a pretty terrible thing to do. Certainly, the character knows this, but when he finally tells the truth...nothing happens! Yes, the family first gets angry with him, but that initial shock and anger (which was devastating) is all that we see. I'm not saying everything needs to be so cut and dry, but it left a sour taste in my mouth that the character basically is allowed to get away scot free with the fact that he used the memory of a dead kid for his own purposes. Not to mention, as the show progresses, Evan seems to get over his social anxiety as the lie grows bigger, so I guess he got very lucky that Connor decided to kill himself so he could learn a lesson? Connor is a barely developed character in the show, and that must have been a conscious choice, since if he were given any more of a personality I think what Evan does would be even more distasteful. As currently written, he's barely a person, so the awfulness of what Evan has done doesn't really take hold.
I also took issue with the brief epilogue that showed that Connor's family is more or less comforted by Evan's lies. I won't speak for everyone who has lost someone to suicide, but to me it felt like Evan's lies gave them an easy way to forget the complicated and troubled son they actually had, and ended up being an erasure of his clear mental illness. I'm not saying it's something that you wouldn't want to do after that experience, but it struck me as wrongheaded.
I give the show tremendous amounts of credit for tackling a difficult subject, and I don't mean to say the show isn't worth seeing whatsoever. But overall, I was tremendously disappointed, and I wanted so badly to love this.
"
I saw the Saturday matinee, and I agree completely with you. During intermission, I thought this might be the most repugnant musical I had seen. That opinion was tempered after watching Acres Two, but I still find the premise morally bankrupt. I didn't find the score memorable at all, and I thought the characters were irritating even before the incidents began.
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