How Broadway’s ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Star Darren Criss Makes Robots Human by Embracing the ‘Beep-o-Boop-Bop’

variety.com:

Gordon Cox Theater Editor In his latest Broadway project, Emmy winner Darren Criss (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”) and his co-star, Helen J.

Shen, play retired, robotic “helperbots” in the near-future love story “Maybe Happy Ending.” And although it might seem like a challenge to find the emotion in an android, Criss is finding that more he plays with the artifice of it, the more relatable his robot becomes. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: “The trepidation I had was: Well, how do we do this without it being too cartoony?

You know, like ‘beep-o-boop-bop,’ for lack of a better description,” Criss said in a conversation with Shen on the latest episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast. “The irony of all this is that the more ‘cartoony’ — the more you lean into this heightened beep-o-boop-bop — the more believable it is. … I’m almost playing this commedia dell’arte character.

There’s a level of theatricality that exists within these robots that actually helps us understand the story quicker.” “The wonderment is something that I’m really resonating with in both of these characters,” Shen added. “They’re living in these helperbot yards and they have been isolated for decades, so to be able to connect with each other, connect with the world, and see that the world is bigger than just this one window is something that I feel like we all can relate to.” Written by the crosscultural duo of the Korean writer Hue Park and his American collaborator Will Aronson, “Maybe Happy Ending” first premiered in Korean in Seoul, where the show has become a successful staple since it premiered in 2016.