Dear Evan Hansen issue... — Page 6

cam5y said: "I do actually think that "it gets better" is a bad message. It is overly simplistic, and for some people it's untrue. If I had heard either "it gets better" or "you will be found" as a teenager, it wouldn't have helped me. My response would have been, "how do you know?" If people take comfort from it then that's fine. But to act like it is unequivocally positive is just not the case. It wasn't presented as a possible outcome- if it had been presented as a possible outcome I wouldn't have had a problem with it."

Of course no one knows the future... but that doesn't mean that as humans we don't try to encourage and uplift each other. When a baby starts to walk, or a kid is trying to learn how to ride a bike, or someone is on their way to an audition or interview, you say "you can do it!" not "well, you may or may not do it." Of course things may not actually get better for someone, but I think it's extremely cynical to suggest that we start saying to depressed people, "well things could get worse. We just don't know." Would you have preferred it presented as "You Might Be Found"?

I'm a logical person too (to a fault), so I get where you're coming from, but total honesty in cases like this is really not helpful. I deal with depression, and I found the show to be extremely comforting. Not necessarily in a literal "you will be found" sense, just in that there's a show that chooses to tackle these complicated issues at all and has started a conversation. Regardless of how my life turns out, "you are not alone" is a good reminder.

JudyDenmark said: "cam5y said: "I do actually think that "it gets better" is a bad message. It is overly simplistic, and for some people it's untrue. If I had heard either "it gets better" or "you will be found" as a teenager, it wouldn't have helped me. My response would have been, "how do you know?" If people take comfort from it then that's fine. But to act like it is unequivocally positive is just not the case. It wasn't presented as a possible outcome- if it had been presented as a possible outcome I wouldn't have had a problem with it."

Of course no one knows the future... but that doesn't mean that as humans we don't try to encourage and uplift each other. When a baby starts to walk, or a kid is trying to learn how to ride a bike, or someone is on their way to an audition or interview, you say "you can do it!" not "well, you may or may not do it." Of course things may not actually get better for someone, but I think it's extremely cynical to suggest that we start saying to depressed people, "well things could get worse. We just don't know." Would you have preferred it presented as "You Might Be Found"?

I'm a logical person too (to a fault), so I get where you're coming from, but total honesty in cases like this is really not helpful. I deal with depression, and I found the show to be extremely comforting. Not necessarily in a literal "you will be found" sense, just in that there's a show that chooses to tackle these complicated issues at all and has started a conversation. Regardless of how my life turns out, "you are not alone" is a good reminder. "

Well, there have been other shows that have tackled these complicated issues. For me, Next to Normal was a much more sophisticated attempt to address the subject. For me, "You are not alone" is a very different message. One of my favourite songs in all the world is "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel. That doesn't imply some kind of resolution to the person's situation, as "you will be found" does, but says that you are not alone. Obviously "You might be found" is a less strong message than "You will be found", but I just don't think it's helpful to teenagers to say that things will definitely get better. This may also be a transatlantic divide; as a British person, I suspect that I am more cynical than most Americans.

And I should add that I didn't hate the show; far from it. I thought the score was stunning and Ben Platt's performance was absolutely amazing and I'd be gutted if he didn't win the Tony. I do have issues with the book as I (and others) have outlined here. But all three of the front-runners this year have different strengths and weaknesses. I have my own preference, but I acknowledge the others' strengths as well.

Updated On: 5/2/17 at 06:57 PM

Gensho said: "The father in the Curious Incident of the Dog deliberately lied to his son and told him that his mother had died. The mother was not dead and was writing letters to her son that were intercepted by the dad. Well, the son found the letters. I loved the scene where the father was hung out on a cross, murdered. Oh wait, that family actually worked through their ****.

It's only Evan Hansen, a teenager, that has to pay the price. He has to pay the price of being the lead of a successful musical. "

The family in Curious Incident worked through their ****, and we saw it happen. Any working through of **** in DEH happened offstage.

Nicole7579 said: "The marketing is the biggest letdown. You Will Be Found was a lie Evan told himself in the story. He wasn't found and neither was Connor. And sometimes that happens. What then? "Step into the sun" would've been a better slogan which some suggested on here."

YES! #StepIntoTheSun would have been such a fantastic and meaningful slogan. Unfortunately, the producers took the route with the easier sell...

GavestonPS said: "Kad said: "My biggest issue is that the plot really has one way out- Evan is exposed and must face the enormous consequences- and that the writers were entirely unable to fully commit to it, opting instead to skip forward to a conveniently tidy ending in the future, leaving all of the actual denouement to happen offstage.



"

As usual, a perfectly cogent and concise appraisal from Kad.

There haven't been so many hysterical cries for poetic justice since Corneille was battling the Academie Francaise in 17th century France!

I've been wondering whether anyone saw a little film called SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE? Okay, the brother there wasn't dead, but he was in a friggin' coma! (I can't comment on the ending because I haven't seen the film myself. LOL.)



"

That is While You Were Sleeping. Fantastic movie, extreme plot holes, but was written as a romantic comedy and I don't think the movie took itself too seriously. Also, noone died.

Updated On: 6/9/17 at 09:34 PM

Yeah I love the show, but I must agree that the marketing is misguided. I hear a lot of people saying that it helped them and inspired them to love themselves and do some good, but I still feel like it contradicts the whole point of the show. I guess if it's doing some good I can't really complain.

I don't think that the problem lies with Evan not getting the proper punishment, but rather with Zoe's dialogue at the end, which even I will admit is somewhat problematic. I've heard it said many times before that Evan should probably run into Connor's mother at the Orchard. It would make for a more interesting ending IMO. I actually have a huge problem with Next to Normal, both in the actual quality of the score and book, but I also have a problem with how unapologetically bleak it is. It becomes so bleak that I'm actually left completely cold by it. I remember seeing it the first week that it opened, and I was expecting to be so moved by it and I actually just left the theatre with dry eyes and a puzzled expression on my face. It was just so depressing that I literally didn't feel anything. I felt like I was reading a textbook. I also think the characters are paper thin, but I'm not even going to get into that. I've directed the show a couple of times to try to give it some soul and I think the cast was able to breathe some life into it, but it's just an incredibly flawed work. Evan Hansen isn't perfect, but at least it's moving and is actually a pretty accurate depiction of social anxiety for some people. I related to it because I saw myself and my son in the characters and I realized how easily we could've found ourselves in a similar situation. Evan Hansen is actually a really thematically complicated show. I could write a book about it, but I think a lot of people are distracted by the marketing department's choice to portray the show as a musical about teen suicide when that's very clearly not what the show is about. The show is kind of satirical in a way and I wish more people would pick up on the nuances.

Amen.



May I ask where you think DEH has SATIRE?

Ben Platt posted on Twitter earlier today that playing Evan has taught him that we are lovable even in our darkest moments, which I think is the most fundamental theme of the show: We all are entitled to our humanity, even when our peers, our Facebook feeds, and even our brain chemistry's tell us otherwise. So no, I don't think Evan is to blame Connor's death. Connor found the letter, read it himself, got the wrong idea, and ran off and killed himself. That's very different from insinuating that Evan is directly responsible for Connor's death. It was to tie Evan to this story and to examine how low a person who is starved of human connection will go.

^That doesn't sound like satire.



The other poster talked about the satire present -- I wanted to know to what he was refering.

I only saw the show once, at Second Stage, so you can take this with a few grains of salt. But I do think there was at least a dash of satire aimed at the social networking culture that helped Evan's lie spin out of control so quickly. That's a peculiarly modern phenomenon that is "sent up" by the show, so to speak.

This isn't really on topic, but I've often thought about how horribly ironic it would be if Connor didn't even commit suicide.

Allegedly, in one of the earlier versions of the script, he also steals a bottle of Evan's meds when he steals the letter. There is a cut song from Arena Stage that references an obvious problem with pills (missing pills from the medicine cabinet, missing kid found passed out in the park). I know Connor's death and Connor himself are left vague in the actual show, but if he died of an overdose (and obviously we do not know that he did) that everyone assumed was self-inflicted because of the presence of what they took to be a suicide note...

If The Connor Project was created and went viral as a suicide awareness group and the subject didn't even actually commit suicide, that would add a whole other level to the already crippling fraud surrounding it.