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Theater review: Maybe Happy Ending
May. 4th, 2025 02:32 pmFINALLY saw Maybe Happy Ending, which is as good as everyone has said and definitely deserves all of its Tony noms! It's charming and funny - very Pixar, rom-com vibes - and just melancholy/bittersweet enough to stop short of being twee.
In a futuristic Seoul, Oliver (Darren Criss) is an early-generation Helperbot whose beloved owner, James, is definitely going to pick him up from the home for retired Helperbots any day now; Claire (Helen J. Shen) is a comparatively newer model but, as the iPhone to Oliver's Nokia, model-wise, is suffering the effects of planned obsolescence more quickly. After Claire shakes up Oliver's twelve-year-strong routine of puttering around his room waiting for James and talking to his plant, they decide to sneak out and road trip to Jeju Island, so Oliver can reunite with James and Claire can see the world's last remaining fireflies. On the way, Claire makes Oliver promise that, even though they're pretending to be a human couple, they won't fall in love; Oliver is like, "we're robots! we can't fall in love!" If you have consumed any media ever, you can see where this is going.
I loved the physicality of Criss' performance; he moves like a Disney animatronic come to life, emphasizing the difference between Oliver as a Model 3 and Claire as a more lifelike Model 5. (3 vs. 5 is a whole thing, plot-wise, but also sets up the joke that got the biggest laugh: when they stop at what turns out to be a "love motel" to recharge (literally), pretending with varying degrees of success to be A Normal Human Couple, they run into another guest who makes a comment along the lines of "where did you find a 10 like her?", to which Oliver cheerfully chirps, "actually, she's a 5!") Shen is also fantastic; she and Criss play well off each other, and their voices are gorgeous together.
Besides Criss and Shen - and not counting the understudies/stand-bys, or the two additional actors appear as Claire's former owners in pre-recorded flashbacks, or the orchestra - the rest of the cast consists of one actor who plays Oliver's favorite jazz singer, appearing whenever Oliver plays his albums (this musical has diegetic and non-diegetic numbers!) and another who plays James, James' son, and all of the bit parts. (There's a tongue-in-cheek nod to this in the running joke that Oliver thinks all humans look alike.) And also Oliver's plant HwaBoon, who's the third lead, really, and gets its own bio in the playbill.
The set and effects were fantastic; watch this trailer, which also shows what I mean about Criss' physicality. The moving shadow-box set pieces and neon reminded me a bit of National Theatre's Angels in America, actually, although the set pieces were lush with detail where AIA was minimalist. The scene with the fireflies was absolutely breathtaking: up until that point, the stage was very segmented in terms of what you could see, but after the first firefly appears as a little light on the tip of a conductor's baton wielded by the aforementioned jazz singer, they "open up" a full view of the stage to reveal a forest grove of full of "fireflies" and the orchestra performing on stage, and there were little blinking firefly lights along the balcony railings, etc., as well as the stage!!
Anyway! 10/10, definitely worth taking a 6 am train to NYC, I hope this wins all the Tonys.
In a futuristic Seoul, Oliver (Darren Criss) is an early-generation Helperbot whose beloved owner, James, is definitely going to pick him up from the home for retired Helperbots any day now; Claire (Helen J. Shen) is a comparatively newer model but, as the iPhone to Oliver's Nokia, model-wise, is suffering the effects of planned obsolescence more quickly. After Claire shakes up Oliver's twelve-year-strong routine of puttering around his room waiting for James and talking to his plant, they decide to sneak out and road trip to Jeju Island, so Oliver can reunite with James and Claire can see the world's last remaining fireflies. On the way, Claire makes Oliver promise that, even though they're pretending to be a human couple, they won't fall in love; Oliver is like, "we're robots! we can't fall in love!" If you have consumed any media ever, you can see where this is going.
I loved the physicality of Criss' performance; he moves like a Disney animatronic come to life, emphasizing the difference between Oliver as a Model 3 and Claire as a more lifelike Model 5. (3 vs. 5 is a whole thing, plot-wise, but also sets up the joke that got the biggest laugh: when they stop at what turns out to be a "love motel" to recharge (literally), pretending with varying degrees of success to be A Normal Human Couple, they run into another guest who makes a comment along the lines of "where did you find a 10 like her?", to which Oliver cheerfully chirps, "actually, she's a 5!") Shen is also fantastic; she and Criss play well off each other, and their voices are gorgeous together.
Besides Criss and Shen - and not counting the understudies/stand-bys, or the two additional actors appear as Claire's former owners in pre-recorded flashbacks, or the orchestra - the rest of the cast consists of one actor who plays Oliver's favorite jazz singer, appearing whenever Oliver plays his albums (this musical has diegetic and non-diegetic numbers!) and another who plays James, James' son, and all of the bit parts. (There's a tongue-in-cheek nod to this in the running joke that Oliver thinks all humans look alike.) And also Oliver's plant HwaBoon, who's the third lead, really, and gets its own bio in the playbill.
The set and effects were fantastic; watch this trailer, which also shows what I mean about Criss' physicality. The moving shadow-box set pieces and neon reminded me a bit of National Theatre's Angels in America, actually, although the set pieces were lush with detail where AIA was minimalist. The scene with the fireflies was absolutely breathtaking: up until that point, the stage was very segmented in terms of what you could see, but after the first firefly appears as a little light on the tip of a conductor's baton wielded by the aforementioned jazz singer, they "open up" a full view of the stage to reveal a forest grove of full of "fireflies" and the orchestra performing on stage, and there were little blinking firefly lights along the balcony railings, etc., as well as the stage!!
Anyway! 10/10, definitely worth taking a 6 am train to NYC, I hope this wins all the Tonys.
