{"id":16394,"date":"2024-11-12T18:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16394"},"modified":"2024-11-12T19:30:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T19:30:24","slug":"maybe-happy-ending-review-darren-criss-and-helen-j-shen-are-robots-in-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16394","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Maybe Happy Ending\u2019 Review: Darren Criss and Helen J Shen Are Robots in Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A supersmart musical about making a connection arrives on Broadway in a joyful, heartbreaking, cutting-edge production.<\/p>\n

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Claire is low on energy, so she pops across the hall to Oliver\u2019s pad for a pick-me-up. But Oliver, a creature of routine, doesn\u2019t like being interrupted while listening to jazz and waiting for mail. She insists, he gives in, and a spark, maybe a literal one, is ignited.<\/p>\n

Never was a meet cute as cute \u2014 and as quietly ominous \u2014 as it is in the musical \u201cMaybe Happy Ending,\u201d<\/a> which opens Tuesday at the Belasco Theater. That\u2019s because the pair are robots, and Claire\u2019s battery is running down fast. Hooking her up to his charger may signal, for Oliver, the beginning of love. It may also signal the end of it.<\/p>\n

That we nonrobots also connect, pair and empower one another to share a too-brief lifetime is the surprising double vision that makes \u201cMaybe Happy Ending\u201d a ravishing addition to the catalog of Broadway nerdicals. The term is high praise, honoring supersmart, usually small-scale shows \u2014 like \u201cFun Home<\/a>,\u201d \u201cThe Band\u2019s Visit<\/a>\u201d and \u201cKimberly Akimbo<\/a>\u201d \u2014 that nevertheless have big emotional impact. This one, directed with breathtaking bravura by Michael Arden, gets bonus points for difficulty, too: Under cover of sci-fi whimsy, it sneaks in a totally original human heartbreaker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The sci-fi elements are handled lightly and humorously in the book by Hue Park and Will Aronson, thus dodging the invidious scrutiny that the genre often elicits. By 2064, when their story takes place, Helperbots \u2014 android servants like embodied Siris \u2014 have been assisting humans with daily tasks for decades. But Oliver (Darren Criss) and Claire (Helen J Shen) are now obsolete, living out their days in a pleasant retirement home in Seoul as their operating systems antiquate and replacement parts become scarce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, they remain fully sentient and distinct. Oliver, an early model Helperbot 3, is more stylized and herky-jerky than Claire, a later model Helperbot 5. His lips are pursed, his feet splayed, his language not quite natural (he can\u2019t stop saying \u201cthank you\u201d) and his hair a hard helmet like a Playmobil figurine\u2019s. Even so, he spent enough years with his former owner, James Joy, to have absorbed some human analog tastes \u2014 the jazz LPs especially \u2014 and to miss him fiercely. Surely Joy (Marcus Choi, excellent) will reclaim him one day, and the character\u2019s last name is no accident.<\/p>\n

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A supersmart musical about making a connection arrives on Broadway in a joyful, heartbreaking, cutting-edge production.Claire is low on energy, so she pops across the hall to Oliver\u2019s pad for a pick-me-up. But Oliver, a creature of routine, doesn\u2019t like being interrupted while listening to jazz and waiting for mail. She insists, he gives in, and a spark, maybe a literal one, is ignited.Never was a meet cute as cute \u2014 and as quietly ominous \u2014 as it is in the musical \u201cMaybe Happy Ending,\u201d which opens Tuesday at the Belasco Theater. That\u2019s because the pair are robots, and Claire\u2019s battery is running down fast. Hooking her up to his charger may signal, for Oliver, the beginning of love. It may also signal the end of it.That we nonrobots also connect, pair and empower one another to share a too-brief lifetime is the surprising double vision that makes \u201cMaybe Happy Ending\u201d a ravishing addition to the catalog of Broadway nerdicals. The term is high praise, honoring supersmart, usually small-scale shows \u2014 like \u201cFun Home,\u201d \u201cThe Band\u2019s Visit\u201d and \u201cKimberly Akimbo\u201d \u2014 that nevertheless have big emotional impact. This one, directed with breathtaking bravura by Michael Arden, gets bonus points for difficulty, too: Under cover of sci-fi whimsy, it sneaks in a totally original human heartbreaker.The sci-fi elements are handled lightly and humorously in the book by Hue Park and Will Aronson, thus dodging the invidious scrutiny that the genre often elicits. By 2064, when their story takes place, Helperbots \u2014 android servants like embodied Siris \u2014 have been assisting humans with daily tasks for decades. But Oliver (Darren Criss) and Claire (Helen J Shen) are now obsolete, living out their days in a pleasant retirement home in Seoul as their operating systems antiquate and replacement parts become scarce.Still, they remain fully sentient and distinct. Oliver, an early model Helperbot 3, is more stylized and herky-jerky than Claire, a later model Helperbot 5. His lips are pursed, his feet splayed, his language not quite natural (he can\u2019t stop saying \u201cthank you\u201d) and his hair a hard helmet like a Playmobil figurine\u2019s. Even so, he spent enough years with his former owner, James Joy, to have absorbed some human analog tastes \u2014 the jazz LPs especially \u2014 and to miss him fiercely. Surely Joy (Marcus Choi, excellent) will reclaim him one day, and the character\u2019s last name is no accident.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16396,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16397,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16394\/revisions\/16397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}