← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen Fall in Love in 'Maybe Happy Ending'
00:27:55
Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen discuss starring as robots in new Broadway musical "Maybe Happy Ending."
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- [00:00]
Latif
Hey, it's Latif from Radiolab. Our goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that? Radiolab Adventures on the Edge of what We Think We Know. Listen wherever you get.
- [00:14]
Darren Criss
Podcasts Listener Supported WNYC Studios.
- [00:32]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you are here. On today's show, we'll talk about how to preserve your family recipes, as if your grandmother says things like, oh, you know, just toss in a pinch of this and that. We'll learn how to drill down on the specifics, and we'll talk about some compelling podcasts you can binge while you're traveling this week or just anytime, including one about the Thanksgiving rescue of 5 year old Elian Gonzalez, which happened 25 years ago. That's the plan. So let's get this show started with a show that USA Today calls one of the best musicals in years. The new original musical may be Happy Ending is an unconventional love story because the couple at the center are robots. The setting is in Seoul, South Korea, in 2064. Oliver and Claire are two retired help designed to, you know, help things, people with household tasks. But they're both now living in a kind of complex apartment for obsolete robots. Oliver, a Series three, believes that his former owner is coming back for him. He and his beloved plant, Hwaboon stay inside, listen to jazz, and wait for a note from James for 12 years. Claire comes knocking at his door. Claire is a Series 5 robot, but her charter is broken and she wants to borrow his. It's a meet cute robot style. But when Oliver decides he wants to go find his former owner, Claire decides to go with him. The problem is humans are tricky things, as they discover. The New York Times calls maybe Happy Ending a joyful, heartbreaking, cutting edge production. It's running now at the Belasco Theater. I'm joined now by the stars of the show, Darren Criss. Hi, Darren.
- [02:27]
Darren Criss
Hi.
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Alison Stewart
And Helen Chen. Hi, Helen.
- [02:30]
Helen Chen
Hello.
- [02:30]
Alison Stewart
Hello.
- [02:31]
Darren Criss
I couldn't have done that summary better myself. I don't know who wrote that.
- [02:36]
Alison Stewart
All right, we love hearing that. You know, let's say we live in a world where help bots are present, sort of like Siri in 3D. How would you describe Oliver to someone just meeting him? Darren?
- [02:48]
Darren Criss
Well, first of all, I would say we do live in a world with helper bots, and they're called smartphones, and we are used to having a significant degree of help from our technology on a day to day professional and personal level. So much so that it has almost extended itself to almost a spiritual, like, romantic connection. When we lose our phones, it's like we lose our minds. There are appendages, you know, and we. I'm sure many of the listeners can relate to this, but I certainly keep outdated pieces of technology around for reasons beyond my rational comprehension. You know, you just, they. They're outdated things, but I keep around. So having said that, Oliver would be something of an iPhone 3 and iPhone 4. I play a robot who is probably at the beginning of this new technology. And so he's a little more, for lack of a better adjective, robotic. He's less human. Michelle can talk more about her character, but she is certainly more human. Like she's running on iOS 97 and my character is definitely still on Windows 98.
- [03:56]
Helen Jai Shen
Helen, how would you describe Claire? If I just met Claire, I would.
- [04:01]
Helen Chen
Describe her as having. I really enjoy and resonate with the sarcasm and the cutting biting edge that she has to offset Oliver's more matter of factness. She has more nuance. And I think as the audience meets Oliver for the first time, meeting Claire becomes the way that we can meet the world in an easier way than his. Such black and white things. I think Claire's already much more comfortable with the gray area and pain and the more painful parts of life. Not in a sad way, not in a pessimistic way, but just kind of in a. She's accepted the reality of life, which is that there is a. There is an expiration date for everybody.
- [04:57]
Darren Criss
Something that just occurred to me now is both our characters are basically the sort of quote unquote humanized, even though the robots version, they're the human like versions of their owners algorithms. We are the for you pages of our owners. So Oliver is a little more of a hermit, a little more of. Has less ability to relate to human people and emotions and loves old records and old things, and is almost kind of more of a static being, which is a direct result of his owner that we learned about in the show. And Claire is more in touch with human emotions and aware of human emotions and the complexities of romance and love and has more humor because she was the byproduct of a couple. So there's a lot of echoes of, you know, what our technology is by way of how we act and act around them and how we use them.
- [05:52]
Helen Jai Shen
How did you, Darren, how did you go about embodying this robot? Because he is an older model.
- [05:58]
Darren Criss
He definitely moves a little bit. You know, Shel is definitely a bit of an underclassman to my upperclassmen. So there is an inevitable sense of perhaps the old ways that are inherent in. However I do things, I think physically, that was the main way I could sort of paint a difference between these two characters. And certainly for an audience to understand that we were in an alternate kind of universe. So I was quite keen on making sure that the physical characterization of this was very clearly not human, which is a fun journey for me because I have a background in physical theater. And so I employ a lot of things that I studied in drama school. And there's a lot of very nerdy theater things I could. Names I could drop. But let's just say there's a lot of wonderful physical theater training. Well, I mean, there's a lot of historical theater traditions around the world. I would say comedy dell'arte from Italy, Kabuki from Japan. There's people like. Like Lecoq, who is a wonderful teacher of movement out of France, and Marcel Marceau. There's a lot of great physical theater acting that I think finds its way into what I'm doing. And it really is a tool to, again, sort of telegraph to the audience that this is not a human being. And in so doing, allows the audience to kind of fill in the emotions where he cannot. So that was. That's a lot, you know, for me, it's funny that, you know, I'm kind of choreographing this thing's lines in between his lines by way of, you know, how he expresses himself physically.
- [07:55]
Alison Stewart
Helen. You know, we see Oliver, his posture is very sort of stiff and forward leaning. You're an older model. You resemble a human a little bit more. How did you think about your physicality of Claire?
- [08:09]
Darren Criss
Newer model.
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Alison Stewart
Newer model.
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Helen Jai Shen
Excuse me. Thanks.
- [08:11]
Helen Chen
Or if Oliver is. Straight lines. Claire has kind of taken those straight lines and curved them a little bit. So there's more. There's a little bit more fluidity to it. There's more the in betweens, the transitional moments. Normalizing is a lot easier for Claire in those moments of tension and figuring out. Yeah, I think. I think physically was. Was definitely easier. It was more akin to human like behaviors. But emotionally, you find Claire's most robotic when she's interacting with her human owners, which I find a really interesting acting challenge and meal to kind of sink my teeth into, where she's very. She's almost unintelligible from humans. When reacting to Oliver's roboticness. And then being utilized for her prime directive, she really turns on the. How she can be helpful and how she can kind of get to the point quicker, not make those jokes, not do those things. It's an interesting journey that I've gone on trying to build this character, especially for the premiere on Broadway. It just feels very much like we were able to build from the ground up and discover what those character traits, how they were going to manifest in our portrayals.
- [09:43]
Helen Jai Shen
My guests are Darren Criss and Helen Jai Shen. They are the stars of the new musical, maybe happy ending. The show is running now at the Belasco Theater. Let's listen to a little bit from the opening number. We start with Oliver. He's alone in his little tiny apartment. First of all, Darren, what goes on with Oliver in his little tiny apartment when we see him?
- [10:02]
Darren Criss
Well, I mean, the word is escaping me. And I study Japanese for a while, so forgive my listeners who know the word begins with an H. I just don't want to mess it up on WMYC because there's a lot of smart people here, but I forget the name. But it's the concept of men that never leave their house. And this is a. This exists all over the world. But in Japan, there's an actual word for it of Hikomori, who never. They never want to leave their little. Their tiny little hermit lives. And everything needs to be perfect. And they'll just spend weeks upon months just never leaving. And so he's a lot of that. And anything that can disrupt his perfect little tiny world is terrifying. But as long as he can stay within his lane, life is beautiful. And he has the whole world within his room, which is the name of.
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Helen Jai Shen
The song here's World Within My Room.
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Unknown
Today the air in Seoul is very clear and warm Today the smiles too are warmer than the norm Though the change is not profound There's a specialness going around let's enjoy the day Watching from the window as the morning crowds appear Picturing the places they are going soon the rush is over and the sidewalks starts to clear Then I start my day in here the world within my room the perfect place to explore from I never need more from the world within my room I choose a book and I read it A place to recharge when I need it and.
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Alison Stewart
It'S always in my room Oliver goes from being sort of he's in his room and then Claire comes knocking Wants to bar his charger every day. At first he's kind of annoyed by it, but then he almost seems like he's actually looking forward to it. What do you think slowly changes in him?
- [12:22]
Darren Criss
Well, such is the nature of, I think, good dramaturgy and theater. What is the arc of a character that can disrupt the, you know, characters? How do we get to point B from point A if that is the sort of baseline of storytelling? Helen's character, Claire, kind of disrupts that. The word is hikikomori, by the way. You know, people who seek extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. That was the word I was looking for. Just to correct myself, I think what's. I was talking about the physicality of the show. There is a. His. His arc throughout the show really does become closer to that of Claire, where those lines and those angular, static pieces become softer and become more. Have more curvature to them by way of this sort of unexpected, beautiful, catalyzing event in his life, which is shell. I think the idea of helper bots, especially somebody like Oliver, who design their purpose around the people they help. I think the show at its core is about how we take care of each other and how we take care of how we love things and make them alive and how do we take care of those things? And so, without giving anything away, Helen's character does kind of provide something that perhaps was lost with his previous owner, and so kind of rewires, add some new ones and zeros to an otherwise presumed finished equation, and in so doing, kind of reprograms him a little bit, maybe.
- [13:54]
Helen Jai Shen
We don't know for sure, you know. You know, Claire clearly brings out something in Oliver, and I wonder, you know, does she really care for him or is she performing her duty to help?
- [14:07]
Helen Chen
Hmm, that's a great question. I think that in the beginning, there's. There's a real need for this charger. There's a need physically, actually. This is probably the worst being that she could have met across the way to borrow a charger. And then, little by little, he does challenge her idea of what being alive means. And I think that is an interesting. It surprises her to then challenge herself about what she thinks, what she thinks existence needs in order to feel fulfilling. There's a moment when they're already on the journey of. Towards the end of her, I guess, lifespan. Both of them think that they have finished cooking and have finished learning everything that they need to learn about the world. But that is a lesson that I think I take from this piece, and I think audiences take from this piece, is that one is never too late to learn something new about the world and learn something new about themselves. As well.
- [15:19]
Alison Stewart
She knows her battery is going to run out. She's fairly clear about that. Let's hear a little bit from the play. Maybe happy ending. This is the way that it has to be. And we can talk about it on the other side.
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Unknown
It's the way that it always was. You should know by now. You should know by now. The body does what it always does. Things will break somehow. You should know by now. You know you only last so long. You know you're only made so well. And you'll be gone eventually. Cause that's the way that it has to be. Time goes by like it has to go. Flying by like light. Flying by like light. The summer rain must turn into snow. Every day, each night fly and fly like light. But who says endings must be sad? Who says goodbyes aren't just routine? Seems like a normal thing to me. Cause that's the way that it has to be.
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Alison Stewart
What does Claire feel about her inevitable decline.
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Helen Chen
Actually at the top of the piece, which is she knows that this charger isn't working. There's a sense of contentment and matter of factness about it. She doesn't feel. She says, who says endings must be sad? Who says goodbyes aren't just routine? Because her friends in the helper bought yards, who she has been more social with throughout, more so than Oliver. She's watched them power down. She's watched them slowly lose their capacity as well. And yes, definitely sad and also kind of normal, which actually I think brings her some comfort that it's not just happening to her. It's happening to everybody.
- [17:33]
Helen Jai Shen
Yeah, Darren, you know, I'll say hi.
- [17:35]
Darren Criss
And shake its hand is one of my favorite lines in that. In that song. You know, when that final moment comes, I'll say hi and shake its hand. And very kind of Buddhist like acceptance of the inexorable in a really. And not a grim way at all. In a very sort of pragmatic way, which is a beautiful thing. I mean, a lot of the things in this show do kind of talk. I mean, it's about. Even though the show really deals about the end of things and you could posit the grim word of death, it really doesn't feel like that at all. The show. To say that that's. It's a show about death and loss would be a very poor way to sell it. It is the opposite of that. It's a show about living and life and how much battery you do have versus how much battery life you don't have. It's definitely I think a glass more full than empty kind of show.
- [18:29]
Helen Jai Shen
You know, it's so interesting about the show because the songs are just very lovely. As we heard, they're written by Hugh park and Will Aronson and they're. There's some. There's a showstopper, but it's not how you think about a showstopper. We won't give it away, but there.
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Alison Stewart
Aren'T, like, big dance scenes, you know, there's a showstopper.
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Darren Criss
I want to know what the show is.
- [18:46]
Helen Jai Shen
Oh, come on. You know what it is. I'm not going to tell anybody, but it's beautiful.
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Darren Criss
They're all showstopper. It's stunning. The show itself is the showstopper.
- [18:54]
Helen Jai Shen
But what do you think about having slightly more understated music for this musical, Darren?
- [19:00]
Darren Criss
Well, I mean, listen, I'm a lifelong musical theater fan, and one of the biggest uphill battles that you have to face is, you know, when something becomes as popular as it is, the cliches are inevitable. And so people who don't know anything about musicals think that they must be this sort of sound or. Which can be a good thing and a bad thing. Some people come to musical theater going, I better hear this kind of music, whatever that is. And there are people who don't come to the theater because they think, God, I really don't want to hear that kind of music. There is an accessibility to this music, which I think is not me just trying to sell the show as being an actor. And I could say that I truly believe this objectively. The show toes a really delicate line between accessibility and sophistication, as I think all the best art tends to do. And I can say that because I didn't write it. So I'm not tooting my own horn here. You know, there is an elegance and a familiarity to the music that sounds, I think, familiar enough to the musical theater loving crowd, but kind enough and inviting enough to people from outside of it that don't. That won't feel like, oh, boy, I'm in a musical. I think the music is seamless because we have two librettists. Two people that wrote the story in the book are the same people that wrote the music. And so there's a holistic understanding of how they can work with each other in a way that doesn't feel. Stop, Start. Okay, here's a story, here's a song. Here's a story, here's a song. They are all kind of in tandem with each other and that organic kind of creativity. I Think comes the proof is in the pudding where people come and they feel like part of this world very instantly. So I think the music is almost. I can't separate it from the story itself. It's kind of part of the whole aesthetic. There's a lot of nostalgia in this show. This character that I play, Oliver, has a love for mid century standards and crooners. So a lot of the music kind of leans into that a little bit. I could go on and on and on how much. I'm just madly in love with this music and I just really look forward to more people sing it so they can hopefully co sign on that with me.
- [21:12]
Helen Jai Shen
Yeah, you know, it's also. It's very modern. The staging is very modern. The projections are very modern. You know, Helen, how do the sets and the projections help you as an actor and help you immerse yourself in the story?
- [21:27]
Helen Chen
It kind of the set feels like it's happening to you as the actor because there's certain set pieces that move towards you. And then we have something called what we call the Iris. Basically, it serves as. The only thing that I can think of to compare this to is when you see a movie and you can control what an audience will see at any given point. And there's moments of the apartments being next to each other apartments. The set itself feels like magic, which as the actor. And then I think also when you get to watch a transition or a set design move, it's just so seamless and smooth. But what's interesting about acting with projections, which I do kind of often in the show, is that I'm reacting to something that is the same sound and same inflection, same line readings every night. And somehow it still also feels new to me every night. I have to be reacting to it as if it's the first time that I've ever heard it before. Which actually kind of gives me a little bit of more room for myself to feel organic in it. Because the thing that I'm playing opposite is so constant that I can actually zhuzh the timing, zhuzh the inflections for my own character, while also knowing what the reaction will end up being. And there's also. Yeah, it's. It's a very outside in kind of acting job that that has become. But it's so much fun to do.
- [23:07]
Darren Criss
And it's a thrill for the audience. You know, my thing about the show that I'm so in love with is that again, whether you know stuff about musical theater, you don't. If you're just Looking. There are three things that I think hopefully happens when you go to a Broadway musical, which is, you know, like a big tradition and a big thing that people think they have to do. They've never been to New York. So there's three expectations that I think need to be met at some point, which is you want a moving story, you want some kind of spectacle, and you want some lovely music. So between the music that I'm madly in love with, and I think I speak for Shel when I say she probably feels the same way, there's also this unbelievable spectacle that happens. But even without those two things, when we started this show just with binders and chairs and a piano in a room, and we're just reading these words and telling this story, we were all, you know, just running out of tissues because of how moved we were by it. So I feel so lucky to get to be part of a, you know, that sort of holy triumvirate of storytelling on the American stage.
- [24:06]
Alison Stewart
Well, it was amazing. There were people crying when I went to see it. Helen, why do you think this show can make people cry and happy? Cry, sad, cry, whatever cry you want?
- [24:18]
Helen Chen
Yes, exactly. I think this show has so many ins for anything. If you have a relationship with a parent that you're trying to heal, if you have a relationship with isolation that you're trying to heal, certainly coming off of the heels of the COVID moment for all of us, it feels like it resonates so deeply with us. We know what that kind of deep isolation feels like. And then to feel the vastness and openness of how big the world can be on the opposite end of that spectrum is something that is really, I think, exciting for and for people to experience. And I think. I mean, I don't know, but I assume the feeling of sitting in a theater and watching something brand new for the first time and not knowing what's going to come at you, thinking that you know where the story is headed, and then a sharp left turn, that would feel emotional to me, I think. Yeah, I think because we've emotionally dilated the audience from this rom com. Gentle. We think we know where this is going because of that first half. The second half ends up resonating. We're already a little bit more open to the emotions that we can feel. And, yeah, to feel real hope for the first time, maybe in a while, is something that will be emotional for people. The music is. It works like movie underscoring, where you're not really sure what the emotion is that you're feeling and suddenly it blasts open. I think that is emotional. And to sit and be together, experiencing something new, I think is something really special.
- [26:10]
Darren Criss
That's why we go to the theater. It's why theater has been an inevitable art form for thousands of years. Despite all the technology that we have, whether they're helper bots, smartphones, or chatgpt, at the end of the day, human beings have an unavoidable desire to have some kind of catharsis in person. And that is what I think we get to provide here. And the tears that you're talking about, I think are just a byproduct of what it is to be moved by human story. And it's not a sad cry. It's just. It's being moved by feeling so unabashedly human. We feel it on stage. People feel it out there in the audience. And as Helen said, you know, that's a feeling that you hope for. When you experience art at its best, you know, you chase it. If you. If you felt it once, you have wondered, what if it's ever going to come again. And having the again privilege to be in a show that is so new and original and singular, which is directly antithetical to a lot of shows that have some kind of familiar IP attached to it. And so audiences come with expectation and comparison. We're unencumbered by that. And so we can feel the hearts and minds of people's dials being really open. Their gain is up to like 11, you know, to hear something new and special. And so it's just such a joy to be able to share that with new audiences.
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Helen Jai Shen
I'm struck in the playbill that W.A. boon has its own bio, says Waboon Broadway debut Regal credits include Little Shop, Audrey Chu, into the woods, understudy, Beanstalk, and the Super Garden ensemble. Special thanks to Maboon for inspiring him to grow insta at the real Hwa Boon. I just want people to know that.
- [27:50]
Helen Chen
Wabun gets its own Quaboon is absolutely the breakout star. Breakout star for sure.
- [27:56]
Darren Criss
Helen is also making her Broadway debut, but I think unfortunately, it might be getting slowly eclipsed by.
- [28:04]
Helen Chen
Completely eclipsed. Completely.
- [28:08]
Helen Jai Shen
The name of the show is maybe happy ending. It's at the Belasco theater. My guests have been Darren Criss and Helen Jaishin. It is really nice to meet you.
- [28:16]
Darren Criss
Yeah, likewise.
- [28:17]
Helen Chen
Nice to meet you. Thank you for having us.
- [28:18]
Darren Criss
Thanks for your time.
- [28:19]
Dave
It's been so long. How have you been? Hello. I'm doing well, Dave. Why are you talking that way? Please say one for a compliment or two for a question. Yeah, this is weird. I think I'm gonna go.
- [28:32]
Unknown
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- [28:41]
Helen Jai Shen
Pacific Source Health Plans.
- [28:42]
Unknown
This is a real person.
- [28:43]
Helen Chen
How can I help you?
- [28:44]
Unknown
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