Maybe Happy Ending
As someone who’s only been getting into musical theater, especially Broadway productions more recently, this is one of the best and most mesmerizing experiences I’ve ever witnessed. Every aspect is absolutely breathtaking.
The acting is absolutely superb, especially Darren Criss. One of the biggest hurdles for me getting into stage performance is the suspension of disbelief in the performances as I have a hard time feeling like I’m seeing a moment in time being recreated as oppose to feeling like I’m watching actors perform but Darren Criss made me believe I was watching an android living his best life and struggling with the existential experience humans face.
The staging and set design was so unique and well crafted. There is this unique portrayal of square images for the scenes almost making it feel like watching the story play out through Polaroids in the apartment scenes and movie so a more wide angle when they venture out to the world giving a feeling of being little fish in a big pond. The lighting effects were done well with this to evoke the perfect emotion with my favorite being how the firefly scene felt like a light in the darkest moments of the story and how the memory scenes are done making it feel like how it would be to view an android’s memory in its perfection as shown in black and white as oppose to the colorful scenes when they’re living their lives like a contrast to how human memory is so subjective and imperfect but the androids have a perfect rigid video memory.
The final parts that I enjoyed the most are the writing and the music. This is definitely my favorite story I’ve seen from musicals and rivals that of my favorite stories I’ve experienced in any artistic medium ever. The music is absolutely phenomenal with its incorporation of jazz elements and instrumentation but also deeply emotional, with again giving focus to the firefly song “Never Fly Away” with it being such an emotional ride to experience, especially in the context of the story. It’s such an ear worm and thought provoking in its subtext for connecting the different themes and stories playing out in the musical. Such a juxtaposition of joy and sadness, pure happiness and grief, innocence and existentialism.
With all this said I’d recommend Maybe Happy Ending to anyone and everyone regardless on whether you’re a fan of musical theater or not.