‘Maybe Happy Ending' director Michael Arden taps into the ‘universal heartbreak and joy' of his robot love story

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2 days ago

"I think it's all about making sure that you're building a world for an audience ... and that you're making sure they're on the emotional ride that you want them to be on," explains Maybe Happy Ending director Michael Arden.
For years, Arden has been one of the most prominent directors when it comes to reinventing worlds. He won a Tony Award for the recent revival of Parade, and earned additional nominations for his radical reimaginings of Once on This Island and Spring Awakening. But Maybe Happy Ending, which tells a near-future love story between two obsolete "Helperbots," marks the first time that Arden has directed a new musical on Broadway.
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Speaking to Gold Derby, the director reveals what it was like to build a complex musical world from the ground up, and why he believes that this robot saga is actually about living.
Gold Derby: What was it was about this script that hooked you the first time you read it?
Michael Arden: It was that I started out feeling so distanced from the characters. Like, oh, these are robots in the future in Korea, that's nothing like me. And then by the time it was over, I thought, "Oh, that will be me one day in some way, shape, or form." I think that's what's so universal about the story, it kind of taps into the universal heartbreak and joy that is when you sign up to love, you sign up to lose. I just felt like I was watching my own life flash before my eyes through the lens of these strange robots, and I was so moved by that.
Part of what makes the show so special is that you can't help but imprint your own experiences on these characters. Was that true for you as you created it?
Definitely. I think what the writers have done so beautifully is that it is not overwritten in the slightest. They've left enough porous space in the material for you to fill in the blanks with your own experience. I think that's the show's magic in a way. You can be a teenager and project your first relationship onto it, or I've seen couples in their 90s who've come to see the show and are filling in the blanks with a lifetime of sadness and joy and hope and love. So it was certainly an interesting process in that almost every day there was a moment that just kind of brought me to my knees emotionally, because it was looking at a different chapter of love and of life. Making sure that we were both specific, and being universal enough to let everybody in, was the challenge and the fun of forming the piece.
The world you've created combines this intimate sense of connection with huge technology and stagecraft. How did you reach that type of visual language?
It was based upon the needs of the story. It's a really cinematic script, and either you kind of do it with two chairs and nothing, which I've heard is kind of what the Korean production does, or you have to go on the journey with these characters. And therefore we need to travel through all these spaces. We need to be in a car. We need to be on a ferry. We need to be in the woods. We need to go into the memories. So it wasn't that I set out to make something technological. In fact, everything we're doing is quite simple. It's just the coordination that makes it very complex. But we're just responding to the kind of widening lens of the perception of the world of these robots. It just felt like we had to respond to each chapter and each emotional beat physically. I felt it was important that the audience went on as much of an epic adventure as our robots did.
The 'Chasing Fireflies' scene is a great example of what you're talking about. There's this grand reveal of the musicians and a lot of stagecraft involved, but it's quite simple in the emotion that it's conveying. How did you create that moment?
In the script it says a firefly appears and then suddenly millions of fireflies appear. I think that's the only stage direction. I often take stage direction as metaphor and emotional suggestion. And I thought, "OK, well Oliver's greatest love is jazz, and it's because of his owner [Gil Brentley], which is because he loves people most of all. Fireflies are what Claire is most excited about because of what they represent, these kind of forest robots that don't ever need to charge. And even though they live briefly, there is a magic to it." So the metaphor to me became clear that it was connected to Gil Brentley and ultimately to other people. So having people be Gil Brantley's New Year's Eve Orchestra, as I kind of imagine in my mind, in the woods, seemed like an appropriate visual metaphor for that. And it's very simple. We open up an iris on the players who've been playing music all night, but somehow having them share space with our robots. … The human element is so powerful because we've been denied it all evening. We've just been stuck with the droids. But it reminds us that, oh, this thing is about life. The way I start and end the show visually is with an iris on [Oliver's plant] Hwa'Boon, who is kind of the witness to this story. He's the only living thing in those rooms. So he represents life because for me, the play is about living
The chemistry between Darren Criss and Helen J Shen is integral to the story. What was it like working with them and charting their characters' relationship?
Incredible in so many ways. They're both so curious and hardworking and really listen to each other and surprise each other. It's been so exciting to watch their performances grow over the course of the run. Helen is just such a pro, I can't believe this is their Broadway debut. It's really shocking because they're wise beyond their years. And Darren is just so meticulous and so curious and obsessive that it's sort of perfect for the role of Oliver, and he's just so good physically. I'm the choreographer of the show, so it was fun to get to work with them both physically and find the differences between the models that way. And then they've just really flown with it since opening it.
The show has become a true word-of-mouth success. What is it like to experience this strong reaction from fans?
It's the best part. Honestly. For many years we all believed in it so much. We knew that if we can just get people to see this, surely they will be as moved by it as we are. But we didn't quite expect the outpouring of love. I think what we've noticed is that people kind of leave the theater a bit more open and tender when they came in. And the most miraculous part is they have shared that, and invited their friends, and called their parents and said: go see the show. And they come back. It's just so rewarding because doing a musical is hard, especially doing a new musical with no nothing to kind of cling onto and a tagline that's probably somewhat alienating for many. So the fact that we are seeing such a swell of love and support is one of the most beautiful things. I stand in the back and see people holding hands and gasping and wiping their eyes as they leave the theater. It's just so rewarding to think, oh, we were right. I'm glad we didn't give up. We all feel just kind of … the word isn't disbelief because we all believed in it. I think it's just gratitude.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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