Review: South African production Dear Evan Hansen beautifully staged and performed, a cautionary tale

The South African production of the musical Dear Evan Hansen is beautifully staged and performed. The production is on in Cape Town at Artscape, February 12 to March 9, 2025 and then transfers to Johannesburg, March 15 to April 13, 2025.

Consummate direction by Greg Karvellas (South African, based in Berlin), working with the all South African creative team. The production, with lighting design by Niall Griffin glows – visually and conceptually. The talent in this country is awe inspiring. This production is testament to the creativity in the musical theatre sector in South Africa. The cast of eight are accompanied by a live band, with superb sound balancing and levels. Technically the whole set is a wonder – driven by an amazing showdeck. The showdeck is an overlay on the stage floor and has portable elements to move the protagonists across the stage – seamlessly- as if by magic.

The leads are a knockout: Stuart Brown (Evan Hansen), Michael Stray (Connor) and Keely Crocker (Zoe).  They are LAMTA graduates – the musical academy run by Anton Luitingh and Duane Alexander. I have been watching these young creatives in student productions at LAMTA and it is wonderful to see them in this musical which tackles key issues – including mental health, teen suicide, teen anxiety caught up in the snare of the digital world. Dear Evan Hansen is a cautionary tale on many levels for young people and older folk.

I saw Evan Hansen on the weekend and I posted on Facebook with a quickie review/insight into the musical. The line “ … cautionary tale on many levels for young people and older folk” unfortunately pinged back at me on Monday morning, when we got news of the tragic suicide of someone we know – one of the “older folk” I blithely referred to in my Facebook post. I am writing this review, reeling from this news.

Before seeing the stage production, I watched the film adaptation of Evan Hansen and watched footage of the musical online. I have some concerns with some aspects of the book (script). Plot spoiler alert. Evan Hansen is a socially anxious teenager. His therapist recommends that he writes letters to himself – Dear Evan Hansen – with a note to self to have a good day. He is being bullied by Connor Murphy and then it suddenly segues to Connor’s parents telling Evan the news that Connor has suicided. They embrace Evan as their son’s bestie and confident.  Evan is pulled along. It is a lie by omission and he becomes a hero – with the internet heightening his fame. He is enveloped in the fold of the Murphy home. His crush on Zoe, Connor’s sister develops into a relationship. I will not plot spoil further but it did leave me uneasy in terms of the trajectory of his rise in a milieu of privilege. Yes, Evan’s mom (played with charm and panache by the fabulous Lucy Tops) is a single mom, struggling to hold it together but there is still money for therapy. Yes, mental struggles are mental struggles, no matter who you are but not everyone has access to therapy and other services. Of course I realise that beyond demographics, a sentient point of the musical is how gullible and malleable we are and how the digital world seduces us as we live out our lives – and deaths – so publicly. It concerns me that there is little accountability in the story and that we don’t see any serious repercussions for Evan following Connor’s death.  We don’t see his mom shattered from his death. The script is the script. I suppose I want the musical to be darker.  Reputational damage?  You be the judge. 

However, watching the South African staging, I was transported by conceptual arc which is abstracted and frames the story in which socio-economic boundaries are blurred. Niall Griffin’s set conjures up for me, a lift ascending and descending like an hour glass with sands of time, running out. There is what looks to be like a halo – perhaps signifying the tussle between good versus bad – so called good and bad choices. Griffin’s costumes in neutral tones and blue denim suggests to me that the protagonists are muted and that they are ignited when their private lives become public – on the internet. The seduction of the online world is visceral in Griffin’s beautiful set and incandescent lighting plot.  Evan had felt invisible before, concealed. Everything is illuminated in this production.

Stuart Brown – with his wonderfully expressive voice and acting -nails the bumbling and anxious Evan Hansen. For instance it is pure theatre magic in the scene near the beginning where we see him fumbling to ask classmates to sign the cast on his broken left arm. The theatricality and drama heightens the narrative. Brown vividly evokes the deep disconnect that Evan feels – from his peers, family, society: “On the outside, always looking in. Will I ever be more than I’ve always been?… When you’re falling in a forest and there’s nobody around. Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?” Young people sitting near me were sobbing, clearly relating to the story and wanting to be “found”, affirmed, seen.

The leads are exceptional actors as well as singers and in singing and talking mode, they tease out the nuances and complexities of their characters. Michael Stray as Connor – the ghost/memory of Connor –powerfully conjures up Connor as bully, victim and poster boy for suicide remembrance. Keely Crocker is glorious as Zoe.  Lucy Tops (Evan’s mom) and Sharon Spiegel Wagner (Connor’s mom) are a delight in conveying how flummoxed they are in terms of the activities of their offspring. They have no idea. Most of us have no idea what is going on in other peoples’ lives. Pain and grief is a potent leitmotif of this production – pinging for me off the sense of the transitional space of the liminal setting – dangling between past, present and future.

The music is beautiful. The lyrics speak volumes and pull one into the story. Quirky humour acts as a foil to the tragedy and provides release. Congrats to How Now Brown Cow and Showtime SA for staging Dear Evan Hansen, an important story and yes a cautionary tale for people of all ages.

✳ Dear Evan Hansen – South Africa: February 12  to March 9,  2025 at Artscape, Cape Town and then transferring to Johannesburg Montecasino’s Teatro March 15 to April 13, 2025. Pics by Daniel Rutland Manners. Supplied.