Character Research Dear Evan Hansen

 

Connor Murphy

Dear Evan Hansen has many characters that have a big part to play in the story.  One of the characters is called ‘Connor Murphy’ who seems to be a bully, this is substantiated by the time that ‘Evan’ bumps into ‘Connor’ and has a small interaction within the hallway we immediately see that for some reason ‘Connor’ has a very short temper. At the beginning of the play the audience may perceive ‘Connor’ as the classic bully figure and that there is not much more to it. However, we soon learn that ‘Connor’ later kills himself and leaves what seems to be a note to ‘Evan’. Stating how no one understands him or even wants to understand him, how no one wants him, he feels alone and that his family doesn’t care about him that they are just stuck with him. But we know that ‘Connor’ stole this letter from ‘Evan’ and that it was a task from his therapist to write a letter to himself. This is the point that the whole story really starts, we find out about ‘Evans’ outlook on life and how this changes as he becomes closer to Connor’s’ family. He soon starts to see them as better than his own, that his own family doesn’t love him as much. In actual fact the Murphy family is grieving and sees ‘Evan’ as an extension of their deceased son and they are trying be closer to him and understand why he killed himself. They are a grieving family, they don’t truly know ‘Evan’ or the lies he has told, ‘Evan’ just thinks that they take care of him more than his own family and this sends ‘Evan’ on his own downward spiral of guilt.

‘Connor Murphy’ is the catalyst for the plot of Dear Evan Hansen. Connor is a 17-year-old student in high school. He was the brother of ‘Zoe Murphy’ and the son of ‘Cynthia and Larry Murphy’. ‘Connor’ suffered from depression and anxiety at a young age but was unable to get help. He fought with his parents and sister and was constantly angry. He ends up committing suicide later on in the story. In the cut song "A Little Bit of Light" we discover that ‘Connor’ most likely overdosed, because of the lyrics, "The missing pills from the medicine cabinet, the missing kid found passed out in the park." This song was cut and therefore it isn't canon, though the Dear Evan Hansen novel substantiates the idea that Connor died of an overdose: "The rest is a blur.... I called a guy from rehab. He gave me what I needed." The novel also reveals that Connor had a history of self-destructive and impulsive behaviour; at times, he would intentionally harm himself, even going so far as to crash his car into a tree: "There were no deer in the road that night. I can come clean about that now. I crashed into that tree because I felt like it. My messiest decisions were always like that. Made in a split second." It is said that Connor also suffers from substance abuse, even being high at the start of the show. In the novel we read from his perspective as well as ‘Evan’s’ and he is shown to be intelligent, insightful and a decent listener. Later in the story, he becomes what other people know him to be a figurehead of a suicide prevention project as well as the supposed friend of Evan Hansen

I have chosen to play the character of ‘Connor’. Whilst the audience never truly gets to know him due to his suicide early on in the play, he appears to be sarcastic, sullen, and easily angered. The character of ‘Conner’ wants to be distracted, he has no one to talk to about how he feels and so he argues with his family. He feels he cant go to his family, cant connect to anyone and so he takes it out on people like ‘Evan’. It is implied that the character of ‘Conner’ is severely depressed and anxious, as well as potentially having borderline personality disorder and deals with a lot of anger and family issues. We learn that he also uses drugs, most likely as a coping mechanism.

This character would bring many challenges for me as an actor. He has a rich inner life with many subtle thoughts and emotions to get across to the audience with very little time to portray this. You want the audience to be able to think back on the few scenes ‘Conner’ is on stage and think wait was there a moment where I could see that this boy was going through something, where he was distressed.