Our Performing Arts students recently visited Curve Theatre in Leicester to watch Dear Evan Hanson. They were then tasked with writing a blog post using WordPress about the performance by their PA tutor Kiah (also our Digital Lead). Jacob, a pathway 3 student at Homefield, excelled at this, writing a wonderful blog post. Jacob is particularly interested in trains, so we thought his blog name was genius!
Dear Evan Hansen – The Curve
What can I say about Dear Evan Hansen, my group took the train into Leicester on Thursday and met up with a few more students from our group before we went in to see the show. We got some seats that are near the back but we could still see the performance.
The show was about a young boy named Evan who was struggling with social anxiety and depression, his therapist encouraged him to write letters to himself as a form of confidence boosting but things soon got out of hands when a student named Connor got his hands on one of them, detailing his crush on Connor’s sister Zoe and commits suicide, thinking Evan was planning on making him look like a fool.
Evan later finds out and due to his signed sling, his family thinks him and Connor were best friends and Evan has to make up lies about Him and Connor in order to help his family, he and another student start a project to replant and orchard in Connor’s honor but Evan is later forced to confess about the lie about him and Connor’s friendship and he vows to be brutally honest about things in future when he sees the replanted orchard in the end.
I think Dear Evan Hanson is a fantastic example of an introverted protagonist story, The sets were full of detail and made you almost feel like you were in the story, especially the scene with the windows in the background which was my favourite by far. I also appreciated how emotional some scenes could get such as my favourite song “Words Fail” when Evan has to confess his lies to the Murphy Family, this scene in particular spoke to me as I’ve been in a similar scenario to Evan before.
I also like (and hate) the character of Jared as I could feel Evan’s pain when Jared tormented him, he’s almost like the little voice in your head that tells you you’re a failure, you’re a loser and you’re worthless over and over again with no way to break the cycle. I personally have had experience with people like Jared before and I commend the creators of this musical for creating a character that’s likable because they’re realistically unlikable.
I really recommend this play to people with anxiety or who are coming of age, this play will really speak to them as it did to me as the main protagonist has not just 1 but 2 mental disabilities and is also portrayed very realistically as well. If’s you’re someone who fall into these two categories and there’s a performance of this at your local theatre, I recommend you give this a watch as it’s an experience to remember!
Jacob’s original blog post can be found at: https://jacobstrainofthought.wordpress.com/2024/10/08/dear-evan-hansen-the-curve-03-10-2024/
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- This article was written by the Homefield College Karten Centre
- Featured in the Karten Autumn 2024 Newsletter
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