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Evan Hansen would never even dream of going viral. The misfit teen would be over the moon if he could just convince someone to sign his cast.
It’s only in our Instagram-obsessed age, with its triumph of style over substance, that the title character in “Dear Evan Hansen” could be catapulted to overnight stardom by a quirk of fate. Framed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s (“La La Land”) gently unexceptional score and slickly directed by Michael Grief (“Rent,” “Next to Normal”) “Evan Hansen” may not be a great musical. But in an era where Broadway is dominated by recycled cartoons and simians, it feels downright fresh and ingenious. Certainly this tender-hearted show captures the slippery nature of truth in a world driven by likes and clicks.
This Tony-winning show starts with a bully, Connor (Marrick Smith) a tormented stoner with black-painted fingernails, who taunts the nerdy Evan (Ben Levi Ross) because he has nothing better to do. Like all bullies, he’s twisted on the inside.
Connor commits suicide having stolen one of poor Evan’s self-help letters, an exercise in affirmation advised by his therapist. Each of these starts out with “Dear Evan Hansen” and each ends in sadness and emptiness.
When Connor’s grief-stricken parents (Christiane Noll and Aaron Lazar) find one of the letters in the wake of their son’s death, they cling to it and to Evan. Evan lets them believe because he’s got a thing for their daughter Zoe (the charismatic Maggie McKenna) but also because the fantasy he spins about his late best friend is better than the reality of having no friend at all. Certainly he finds the embrace of this well-heeled family soothingly seductive.
Phoebe Koyabe plays the nakedly ambitious Alana, who parlays Connor’s death into a cottage industry of merch, Facebook posts and Kickstarter campaigns just because it’s the only way she knows how to relate to the world. She tries to profit by it.
Alas social media fame is a fickle beast and Evan soon learns how quickly kindness can turn into cruelty in adolescence. Evan emerges as a figure deserving our empathy, a gawky teen in a world that prizes confidence above all. If the character’s struggles don’t really carry a full-length musical, the show does ask some probing questions about how the Internet isolates us in our little silos of fake connection.
Perpetually hiding his face and twisting his shirt, Evan is the perfect poster boy for a generation desperate to live up to the glossy curated fantasies of the Internet. “You Will Be Found” is like an anthem for a new lost generation, one desperately scrolling in search of a meaning that just isn’t there.
Ross captures Evan’s anxiety and his awkwardness but there’s still not quite enough to the story to make it cut to the bone. The lyrics veer into cliche and the set, a throbbing, strobe-lit beehive of screen alerts, often reveals more about the themes than Steven Levenson’s underwritten book.
Strangely the most powerful moments here belong to the older generation. When Evan’s blue-collar mother (a sharp turn by Jessica Phillips) sings about the strife of being a single mom or when a bitter married couple shares a rare hug, we see the rawness of an inner life revealed.
For a show about the brutalities of high school, It’s the parents who really steal your heart.
‘DEAR EVAN HANSEN’
Music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, book by Steven Levenson
Through: Dec. 30
Where: The Curran, 445 Geary St., San Francisco
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: $99-$325; 415-358-1220, www.sfcurran.com
