by Zach Raffio. @zachraffio.
The new Broadway musical Maybe Happy Ending is charming audiences across the globe with its unique tale of two Korean helper bots falling in love against all odds. I, on the other hand, am not so convinced, and think their portrayal is downright irresponsible at best.
This is primarily because of my own experience with robot interactions - namely the time I put two cell phones close together and they made a really loud, bad noise. It was kind of like a hissing noise that happened when I did that.
Love isn’t just for the living - but that doesn’t mean robots can do it. Cause they don’t have human hearts or any of the other organs we have (brains, elbows, etc). You need all of those for love. You know what you don’t need them for? Making like a loud static sound at each other that doesn’t go away until you fully separate the two.
Doesn’t sound like the love I know.
The cast are not to blame here! Helen J. Shen and Darren Criss command the stage with their heartwarming chemistry, which is probably why so many people have been fooled. But if the folks behind this new musical wanted to show what it’s really like when two robots meet face-to-face, Criss and Shen would stutter and growl at each other until someone dragged them away.
Not growl, really. Like hiss. Like a hissing sound. Do you know what I mean? Like “chhhrrr” I don’t know it’s hard to type it.
So, if any producers of Maybe Happy Ending are reading this, I hope they learn that ideas hold power. The idea that these two robots would go on a genre-bending theatrical adventure rather than do like 1998 PC startup noises at each other is nothing but a pipe dream.
I should know - in fact, top prove my point, I’m about to put two phones together again to see if they do it. Hold on. Wait, they're not doing it. Hold on, wait. No it isn’t working. I swear they were doing it before, it was like “chhhrrr.” Like I said it’s hard to type it.
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