Dear Evan Hansenis out of touch. Everyone knows what a panned disaster the film was and there’s a lot of reasons for that, but an oft-overlooked cause of this mess is the film’s failure to understand the importance of staging. This is most noticeable and off-putting in the staging of the musical numbers in particular. Staging is a big deal for a musical on stage, but it still bears equal importance in film, where the rules of staging are different.Dear Evan Hansenlacks an understanding of just how important staging is to a musical, and to frame a musical number no differently than a normal scene of dialogue shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the music is evenfor.
There’s a lot that can happen on the stage that cannot happen on the screen and thus adjustments must be made. The suspension of disbelief for a live audience is much lower than for a film audience, thus if the actor moves to center stage and soliloquizes for two minutes without moving much, it’s acceptable in that realm because the background actors can still pantomime out enough movement to imply more going on. But in film, what you see is what you get, and to watch someone simply sit or stand for three minutes while they belt a ballad alone is simply not visually engaging.
With so many songs taking place in mostly stationary locations or while characters walk, it creates boring and repetitive songs. Rather than moving the story forward, as songs in musicals are meant to, the songs inDear Evan Hansenessentially freeze characters in place to rephrase things they’ve already discussed in song. By framing the musical numbers the same way normal conversations are framed with a flat shot/reverse-shot structure, it creates a monotonous feeling in multiple musical numbers that only confounds the feeling of aimlessness.
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With the exception of “Sincerely, Me” (which is already jarringly different in tone from the other songs), the staging of the musical numbers inDear Evan Hansenlack energy. In musicals, the songs function as an externalization of the character’s emotions. What they feel grows too overwhelming, and it spills out into the world around them, infecting them with the same sense of emotion and urgency. This is why choreography and staging play such a big role because they help to elevate the expression of those emotions and turn them into a larger-than-life performance. Exaggeration is a necessity of the medium. But from its opening number alone, the camera simply tracks Evan, and the environment feels entirely separate and unmoved by Evan. If this staging was exclusive to “Waving Through a Window," it could work. The sense of isolation created by the lack of acknowledgment given to Evan as he belts out the song while walking through the school hallway directly reflects on the theme of the song. But this lack of energy in the staging is present throughout. The film simply refuses to engage in more dynamic staging and choreography seemingly for the sense of realism.
The issue, though, is that instead of a sense of realism, the lack of attention to staging creates a sense of dissonance. The visual language of the film is not conducive to the way characters are prone to break into song, and thus it makes every instance where the music kicks back in all the more jarring. There’s a nearly twenty-minute break between “Waving Through a Window” and the second song in the film, “For Forever.” This already makes the transition back into song startling enough, but what makes it even more dissonant is the staging.
The scene begins with Evan talking to the Murphy family as they ask for stories about Evan and their dead son, Connor. The scene takes place around a dining table and follows a traditional shot/reverse-shot structure that continues the entire time that Evan is singing. This is jarring in comparison to “Waving Through a Window,” because, as opposed to Evan simply singing to himself, the other people are actively involved and listening to what Evan is saying. The way that the film doesn’t visually differentiate between the musical numbers and the normal dialogue makes it feel like we’re supposed to actually think Evan just started singing at the Murphy family, with them not reacting to it. The static shots that follow Evan singing while still completely seated and hunched into himself makes the whole scene uneasy because the visual language is not matching the energy of the music in the slightest. In its entirety, the scene is unintentionally surreal and unsettling.
This is not to say that lowkey songs cannot be well-staged for the film, simply thatDear Evan Hansenseems resistant to staging that embraces more theatrical forms of expression. The low-energy staging can also occasionally have the side effect of being not just unengaging but disconcerting. In the scene where Evan and Zoe get together, they sing the song “Only Us." The song itself is straightforwardly romantic, but the staging of the scene has Evan and Zoe slowly circling a kitchen island. The island itself is large and creates a barrier between the two characters that seems to contradict the closeness expressed in the song’s lyrics. There’s also an added element of creepiness from the action of circling the counter, making it seem less like a teasing flirtatious encounter, and more the vibe that Zoe is being pursued, which does not do Evan’s character any favors. The presentation is not only flat but at times feels like this almost actively contradicts what the movie is trying to tell us.
To compareDear Evan HansentoIn the Heightswould seem an unfair comparison due to the show’s different tones and general exuberance, but there are still staging lessons to be learned from it. While there are many scenes fromIn The Heightsthat evolve into elaborate dance sequences, songs like “Breathe” are lowkey and follow the character Nina as she wanders the streets of her neighborhood.Dear Evan Hansencould take several cues from this scene that help to elevate it into something engaging to watch.
There’s a sort of fantastical nature to even these more mundane musical numbers like “Breathe." The visual of a little girl dancing along the opposite side of the street is subdued compared to the elaborate choreography of the other musical numbers, yet it still elevates the scene. Instead of simply watching Nina walk through her old neighborhood, we are visually compelled to travel with her through her own past as well. The staging adds an extra dimension to the song.
Dear Evan Hansen’s staging feels so off-putting because the film seems uncomfortable with the music being entirely non-diegetic. The singing itself is understood to not be taken literally, but the framing seems adamant on keeping the character’s staging thoroughly grounded in that reality outside the songs. Ultimately, it just feels dissonant and strange as the high energy of the songs is juxtaposed with the extremely low energy static shots and keeping characters largely motionless in the staging.
The musical numbers inDear Evan Hansenfall flat because they are staged no differently than the normal conversations and thus ultimately feel like they aren’t expressing any more emotion than a regular dialogue scene does. The lack of energy in the staging and direction of the musical numbers makes the audience question why it’s even a musical in the first place. And that’s the last thing a musical should do.
