Another Edition of Broadway in LA

This ex-New Yorker and self proclaimed Broadway-phile has to wait patiently for all the new hits and Tony winners to show up in Los Angeles.   Usually, it's a first stop on a national tour and, if I am so inclined, I will seek out the production.

Such was the case with "Dear Evan Hansen."  For two years, it's been the hot ticket on Broadway not named "Hamilton."   It won a passel of Tonys and was generally fawned over by...well...everybody.  The millennial's version of "West Side Story."  Yeah, yeah, yeah.   It's entertaining and cures cancer at the same time.

Now some of my older Broadway pals were a little lukewarm to it all.  I mean, it is geared for a younger demo and does highlight within its plot lots and lots of social media.  But I needed to see for myself.

Well, it shows up at the Ahmanson Theater for six weeks and it is almost immediately sold out.  Obviously, there are lemmings on both coasts.   But I picked a couple of dates and then set a price alert on Stubhub.  When the price of a seat hits $100 dollars or below, I wanted in.   And, as luck would have it, I scored a balcony seat for 95 bucks.   Sweet!

So, how was the show, Len?  Well, at the end of the first act, I was texting friends telling them how surprised I was at my own enjoyment of what I had seen thus far.   The music was actually listenable.   The plot was compelling, although it was much more sitcom-like than I expected.   Hmmm....

And then there was the second act and "Dear Evan Hansen" takes oodles and oodles of uneasy dramatic detours.   Oh, I followed every path and admired the skill of the cast to get me there.  At the end, I stood with the others and joined in the standing ovation which virtually every show now gets as almost a standard.

By the time I had gone the escalator into the Ahmanson parking garage, I had completely forgotten everything that I had just seen.  It was like I had just consumed frozen pizza after a cleansing fast.  It was only momentarily satisfying.   

I realized that the sum of all the parts of "Dear Evan Hansen" is less.   As I reflected all the dramatic turns, I realized that the show was as manipulative as an episode of "This Is Us."  The goal is to make the audience cry as much as their tear ducts could handle.

Except I didn't.  

That said, I was heartened to see a musical that had so many teenagers in the audience.   Perhaps they were the target demo.  Along with their parents who are probably trying to figure out how to get their kids off Twitter.  For that reason alone, "Dear Evan Hansen" is worth the Stubhub price alert dollars I paid.   

The only trouble is that you can't hum that weeks after the show.

Dinner last night:  Chopped salad.