Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Darren Criss returns to Broadway alongside Helen J Shen in the new romantic musical comedy Maybe Happy Ending. Inside a one-room apartment in the heart of Seoul, Oliver lives a happily quiet life listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant. But what else is there to do when you’re a Helperbot 3, a robot that has long been retired and considered obsolete? When his fellow Helperbot neighbor Claire asks to borrow his charger, what starts as an awkward encounter leads to a unique friendship, a surprising adventure, and maybe even…love? Winner of the Richard Rodgers Award, Maybe Happy Ending is the offbeat and captivating story of two outcasts near the end of their warranty who discover that even robots can be swept off their feet. Helmed by visionary director and Tony Award winner Michael Arden, with a dazzling scenic design by Dane Laffrey and book, music, and lyrics by the internationally acclaimed duo Will Aronson and Hue Park, Maybe happy Ending is a fresh, original musical about the small things that make any life worth living.
What “Maybe Happy Ending” asks, even in its ambivalent title, is whether that’s a good thing, for them and for us, their mirror images. When Oliver fully realizes that Claire’s “shelf life” will end before his, he asks in real pain, “How can people do this?” — meaning survive the death of others. If the start of love is the start of loss, is it perhaps better to erase one’s memories (which these Helperbots can do because they have their own passwords) or even to avoid the journey altogether? A good question for robots and, as posed by this astonishing musical, maybe the most deeply human one of all.
Director Michael Arden’s gorgeous staging makes the most of Dane Laffrey’s multilevel sets behind sliding panels and George Reeve’s floor-to-ceiling videos. As Oliver and Claire fall, it’s easy to do the same for the show. No maybe about it — Maybe Happy Ending has theatrical magic.
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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