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'Maybe Happy Ending' Music and Stagecraft | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  Greetings from your local helper bots and welcome to the latest episode of the BSB Podcast.
• 0:05
  Today we're continuing our journey into Jeju Island, but before we dive in, like, follow, and subscribe to us, BSB Insider, on all social media platforms @bsb.insider.
• 0:15
  spoiler warning, if you still haven't seen Maybe Happy Ending and wish to remain unspoiled, shut down this episode and return once you've located all of your replacement
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  parts.
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  On our last episode, we covered the story and the narrative of maybe happy ending.
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  A musical that explores themes of grief, loss, loneliness through the medium of two robots who have been retired from their jobs.
• 0:38
  Oliver and Claire are living their best life in the coolest retirement village ever, but decide that it's not enough.
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  And they set off on a journey to find James, which is Oliver's old owner, and potentially some fireflies, which I think that we'll talk a little bit in this episode because it does
• 0:55
  come back up.
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  um Ultimately, the story itself, in my opinion, leaves a little bit to be desired.
• 1:02
  Potentially, let's cut off a few minutes here, people.
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  We don't need all of that shit.
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  uh But some of the coolest parts of this show are the staging and the technical aspects.
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  And so I am excited to talk about that.
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  But before we could dive into that, RJ, we do need to talk about the music.
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  music.
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  The ballad after ballad after ballad that is maybe happy ending.
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  um As always, I just want to give a shout out before we tear this music apart.
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  Actually, we're not going to tear it apart, but um the original score is by Will Aronson and Hugh Park, um which they're really trying to, it's interesting.
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  It's this blend of like.
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  1950s pop with something from the future.
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  You, Mr.
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  Ballad Man, you love ballads.
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  Did this music do anything for you?
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  So, interesting that we're calling it ballads.
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  I don't disagree.
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  I just don't even know if that's truly what they fall under.
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  In the sense of musical theater ballads, I agree that it is more of like a pop ballad, that we're trying to make work for this show.
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  in the sense that the rhythm and everything is still driving, like there's still, like the beat is staying relatively fast-paced, not fast, but it's moving, it's not like a
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  tortoise.
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  But...
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  There's no...
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  it's like a plateau.
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  Like, we're going up and we're just staying...
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  for the whole show, we're just like kind of staying here.
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  um There's no, like, swell ever.
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  There's no song that, like, is a powerhouse moment.
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  There's not...
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  I can't even...
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  I can't quote...
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  I feel like this is blasphemous and people are gonna have strong opinions, but like I can't quote a single line from any of the songs.
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  And it's not because I saw this forever ago, we just saw it.
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  So, um even the title song.
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  I don't know.
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  I just like...
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  I have no words, apparently.
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  So what's interesting to me, and I'm going to totally make up my own subgenre for this music, it felt like a K-pop waltz.
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  That's what it felt like.
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  It felt like almost like music that you would waltz to with K-pop elements, but it was all just literally...
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  It almost feels like, so this is love from Cinderella, but through the entire show on one note and...
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  There's not a lot of variation.
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  Like if you're looking for a show that has variation you're like going like, okay wicked we have You know, we have popular we have what is this feeling we have defying gravity,
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  you know we and there's I can go through every single show and do this where this one it's like The only song differences that are really different are the ones that are saying by
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  Gil Brentley Everything else sounds exactly the same if you have seen the performance of the firefly song
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  at the Tonys, that is the entire hour and 50 minutes of maybe happy ending with little variation and it did nothing for me.
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  And that sounds really harsh, but I agree with you.
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  There's not a single line, a single word.
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  can't even think of a single song.
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  I know there's the Firefly song.
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  I can't tell you anything about the Firefly song other than the fact of the technical aspects of the Firefly song that we'll get into.
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  And so to me, it's just like the
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  This music needed something more.
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  Yeah, and that right there is the reason that it didn't win, Tony, uh for best musical.
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  um Because yeah, does have like the technical aspect in the staging is incredibly impressive.
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  And honestly, if the music had been better, easily could have blown people out of the water.
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  Like it just, had, it has such potential.
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  even just as a play.
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  Like I'm almost wondering, and I know we've said this about other shows, but if you take the music out and you just replace it with a little bit more scene.
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  What does that do?
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  Does it change it much?
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  Because you could still have like a Gil Brentley playing in the background, right?
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  You don't need like a live guy singing.
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  It could just be like a record or something, which is literally what they're also alluding to, by the way.
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  So.
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  Yeah, I would be very curious to hear people who really like...
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  This is not like a karaoke song or a show because there's no songs that I'd be like, you know what?
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  after for those folks listeners who aren't theater people
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  Do we have those?
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  I know, like, God bless you, first of all, for listening to this, but you know, theater people love a good karaoke night, and they love a good uh musical theater-themed karaoke
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  night.
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  And I can't anticipate that any single person would sing a single song from this show in a karaoke night.
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  I think what you said, though, is very interesting about like, would this be a show that I would see that's like a straight show?
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  And like, I think there's some shows that are better situated to be a straight show.
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  Let's take something like Liberation that we saw.
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  Like Liberation made a lot of sense.
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  And in fact, I think that some of the messaging of that would have been a little less.
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  poignant if we put music to that show specifically.
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  I do think that this one would have hit harder for me if we didn't have the music that we had.
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  Or I think that there should have been something slightly different.
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  And when you look at the awards that I won for the Tony Awards, it won for best musical, which I still have questions about, best leading actor, best direction, best musical and
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  best score, which is interesting, but best orchestrations, it did not.
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  You know what mean?
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  And so best sound design, which is also interesting.
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  But like, feel like it was truly, I think what made this show feel so long, and maybe not as engaging, is the fact that the music doesn't take you anywhere.
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  Like you said, it kind of takes you up, and you're just held like a single note.
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  It's almost like the white noise hum of a machine, which could be something kind of cool to think about.
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  Like, okay, they're machines, so that white noise just goes up, and it kind of stays there, and you're kind of there with like the fans of a machine.
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  but you're just kind of held there until the end of the show.
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  And like, I kind of like a show where I can go up and I can go down and then you can spend a little bit of time on each little end.
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  You can have a little bit time in the middle and maybe happy ending gave me nothing.
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  It just gave me nothing to work with in that aspect.
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  And so I almost wish that they would redo this as a straight show.
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  And I'm going to just, I'm going to place my bet right now, people, that when this show tours in Michigan relatively soon, I'm going to have an absolutely different opinion of
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  it.
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  Like I did with Hadestown
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  So like maybe I'm gonna feel totally different, but like this again, this music, I just did not get what I wanted from it.
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  I didn't get what I needed from it.
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  And I don't think half the people that were in that audience actually felt anything from that music.
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  The storyline maybe, the music, not so much.
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  Yeah, for some reason I forgot that it won those Tonys.
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  And now looking at it, I'm like, okay, why?
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  Like am I just?
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  not hearing what other people heard.
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  ah Especially when I think about like the other shows that were in the race with this one.
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  I'm like...
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  Yeah, like not.
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  it just the appeal?
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  It's so different, which I agree.
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  It is like there isn't another show on Broadway like this one.
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  The music is different in the sense that it's not what we expect.
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  It's not quite musical theater, but it's also not straight-up pop.
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  It's something in between.
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  Maybe that appeal of like newness was what pushed it forward?
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  Okay, but when we're looking at the shows, we're gonna pause this conversation about the music for a second.
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  When you look at the nominees for Best Musical, you had Maybe Happy Ending, Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, and then my two favorites, Death Becomes or Operation Mincemeat.
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  How did this went out against Operation Mincemeat?
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  That's what I'm just like, I felt more engaged with Operation Mincemeat.
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  I felt that it had more emotional points to it.
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  And maybe that's just...
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  Maybe there is somebody out there who does connect with the story of Maybe Happy Ending, in which I did not.
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  Well, both of those, Death Becomes Her and Operation, in my opinion, both are better.
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  Substantially, like not actually even close.
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  So...
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  Interesting.
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  Original score?
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  I can understand.
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  There was a lot of like, like, scored music uh behind the acting and a lot of important, like, transitional stuff.
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  But overall, yeah, that is, I would love, you know, listeners, if you have completely different opinions, obviously some people do because it won.
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  I'm curious what your draw is or isn't to this score.
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  And just one more thing that I'm gonna point out.
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  Sorry, I'm on a soapbox right now.
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  But for Best Direction, it was up against, not only was it up against the director of Death Becomes Her, but Jamie Lloyd for Sunset Boulevard.
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  Which to me,
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  Yeah.
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  That's the, that's again, Broadway theater is subjective.
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  Art is subjective.
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  Subjectively, Maybe Happy Ending was not my show.
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  Like, I think that's what I'm taking away from this is just that like, there's somebody out there that loves the show.
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  But I remember before we even went there, one of my musical theater people said, good luck getting through Maybe Happy Ending.
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  The show is so dense and the music is dull.
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  And I try not to have preconceived notions before I go in there, but I did leave a feeling like, no, this woman was right.
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  The music was pretty dull, with the exception, whoo, I'm a backtrack just for a moment.
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  ah I thought the first song that Oliver sang, World Within My Room, which again sets the tone for the show, I thought that was probably the best song there.
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  And that's probably the only song I could recall with ease.
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  That's fair, honestly.
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  um That was a, it felt like a long song.
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  Or maybe I was just already like, this is how this is gonna go.
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  But it was very good.
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  And it does, it set up exactly, like there were no surprises after that.
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  Yeah, you knew exactly what it was.
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  And so while we have complaints about the music, I think where this show really does shine is the staging.
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  And right off the bat, I just want to talk about how the show opened.
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  And this was kind of a motif that was used frequently.
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  They had three screens in front of that, in front of the...
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  the stage correct that open and close different ways because I think that was probably one of the coolest things that and the lighting boxes of the rooms and how Claire's room moves
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  in and Oliver's moves in but to give people An idea is that I think there was a screen that opened up and down and then there was two screens open left and right so it gave you
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  this idea of like almost like a digital picture screen like as it moved around and it had some lights on it and so for me
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  That was just a stellar piece of staging and I could not figure out, my mind could not look at it and figure out how it was working because it did look so cool.
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  Yeah, I mean, just literally from the get-go, basically, I knew that the staging was gonna blow me away.
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  um The technicality and the work that goes behind just ensuring that even one piece of that works every single time, especially when you're doing as many shows on Broadway as
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  you are.
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  blows my mind because I remember working in a theater and before every show you're checking every possible anything that moves you're checking and you're running it and
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  you're making sure and so for a show like this where there are I don't even know how many moving pieces because there's probably for every piece that we see on stage that moves you
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  can bet that there's another five behind the scenes that's also the thing and so
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  It's crazy to think about and so just, mean, obviously shout out to every stagehand, stage manager, anybody that's assisting in the wings and from the booths and from the fly
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  systems because holy smokes, it's an impressive, impressive sight.
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  And while they did win for scenic design, it's almost a travesty.
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  Wow.
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  I'm really feeling some type of way on here.
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  It's almost a travesty that it did win for best lighting, which I guess it did win.
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  It did lose out to Sunset Boulevard, which has some fantastic lighting.
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  But I did think that what it did is with the lighting that it had, which I know that was also part of the reason why it was delayed.
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  I'm pretty sure was that because the lighting wasn't there and they did not want the show to start before they had every piece there.
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  But the lighting really did capture the futurist feel.
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  that they were going for.
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  And right off the bat, like again, this is just some really cool pieces of technique work.
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  When they had the scenes where sometimes they would go up and they would go into the memory and the screen would come down and it got all digital and there was projections and
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  stuff like that.
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  Those were the moments of the show that I was absolutely blown away about because it felt of the world and the story that we're actually looking at.
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  And it gave the show just that little bit of life that it needed.
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  Yeah, we got a little bit more uh depth, literally, um to break us up from, you know, it's cool for the first like hour, right?
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  Boxes coming on and off and you're moving and like, and there is some breakup from that as we go, like you just mentioned.
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  um But that can only be impressive for so long.
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  or the same things can only be impressive for so long.
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  So yeah, to bring...
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  I mean, I can't even imagine how many screen, like how many items they have coming up and down because there are just continuously so many layers.
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  uh
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  But that's, you know, that's show business.
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  I do think though, when you think about it, with as much that they put into those certain pieces, like the boxes and the lighting, there is some left to be desired about some of
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  the other sets.
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  I should mention the Fireflies too.
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  They do a really cool thing where they have flying Fireflies.
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  They capture them in containers.
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  At the very end, they have one that flies through the audience.
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  So again, they have some really cool pieces of like small lights.
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  I think there were some people that were holding
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  like wands almost with lights on them for the Fireflies.
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  I could be remembering that completely wrong.
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  And of the Firefly scene, having the orchestra or like the string quartet in the back is a really cool kind of effect.
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  It kind of gave it almost like a uh Kiss the Girl vibe-esque from Little Mermaid.
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  And so I did like the use of the Fireflies.
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  But with that though,
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  I feel like there was some left to be desired for the other sets because there really wasn't any other sets besides their rooms.
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  And that might be it.
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  That might in the house that they roll into a little bit later when he does his flashback.
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  Other than that, it's a very empty stage.
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  There's not a lot going on choreography like choreography wise.
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  There's not a lot going on visually sometimes.
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  uh And so, again, not I'm not trying to shit on the show, but I think that there was a lot to be desired.
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  And I think that probably a lot of their budget went into that lighting.
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  effects and stuff like that that they just didn't have room for anything else.
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  Yeah, I can't even imagine the technical budget on that.
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  um And really the only break up in physical scene that we see.
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  Yeah, we've got the house.
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  We've got, I mean, the firefly scene.
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  Just, yeah, like that.
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  That front stage, mean, there's so there's basically like a lip to the stage that is used a lot.
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  They used a lot of like mechanics up and down to break up the redundancy of this, set.
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  But it's still just like, it's not like anything was on that.
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  It literally was just they step on it.
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  goes up three feet.
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  They step down from it.
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  Like trying to give depth where there's still, it doesn't feel like depth.
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  um
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  I don't know.
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  Interesting choices in that regard for me.
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  for sure, for sure.
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  So it makes me wonder when we're talking about the show.
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  who this show is for.
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  I know we ponder this sometimes, but like this to me is not a show that you're taking your family to because I don't think kids or teenagers are really gonna sit in there in front.
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  And actually, I'm gonna take it step further.
• 19:19
  The people in front of us had younger kids and they were not engaged with the show at all.
• 19:26
  This doesn't necessarily feel like a show that's for people who love sci-fi, even though it's a sci-fi heavy show.
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  This feels like somebody...
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  for somebody who loves classic golden age musicals and is looking for those vibes again and this is meeting that or maybe it's just for a generation younger than me that I don't
• 19:46
  understand the quirkiness of the show but who would you say maybe happy ending is for?
• 19:51
  Yeah, I would say maybe just a little bit younger than us.
• 19:58
  Not like child, but like maybe my sisters, like somebody in their 20s or like late teens.
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  So I guess like early 2000s babies.
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  um Don't ask me why.
• 20:15
  I just can see the people that I know that are that age, from what I know of them, I feel like they would really enjoy the show.
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  I agree, your sister would love this show.
• 20:27
  No, no, your sister would 100 % love this show.
• 20:30
  I would even make an assumption that I think that you're right, people that are a little bit younger than us, maybe even still in their 20s would eat this show alive.
• 20:40
  But for why, I don't know.
• 20:41
  To me, this is not a show that maybe deserved the best musical that it earned.
• 20:48
  I think it deserved the one for best actor.
• 20:53
  I can even see best direction-ish.
• 20:57
  But to me, this is not a show.
• 20:59
  So like there's somebody out there who thought this was the best musical.
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  Dare I say it's not me.
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  I
• 21:06
  think this is the first time we disagree with a Tony uh win or even nominations.
• 21:14
  But hey.
• 21:16
  um except that the year that the SUFFS lost pretty much everything and Death Becomes Here lost out so much and we didn't like that either.
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  So I feel like we're not that far off.
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  We had our favorites.
• 21:28
  We did, we did.
• 21:29
  And again, this just shows, again, how subjective art can be.
• 21:34
  This is a show for somebody.
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  This is a C minus for me.
• 21:39
  Like this is like maybe even a D plus.
• 21:41
  Like this is something and I want to like it.
• 21:44
  And this is where I'm having a hard time is I really, really wanted to like it.
• 21:49
  And I'm hoping that when it tours, I can experience it differently, preferably with more leg room.
• 21:55
  ah
• 21:57
  But this is just a show that on my first time watching, was like, I wouldn't go see this again.
• 22:04
  Like, I wouldn't pay to see this again.
• 22:06
  I wouldn't actively go to New York to say, let's see Maybe Happy Ending.
• 22:10
  And I know some people who have seen it five, six, seven times.
• 22:15
  And that could not be me with this show.
• 22:18
  Yeah, I'm like, what are you watching?
• 22:21
  I mean, like, because usually if I see a show multiple times, it's because I want to catch something else.
• 22:27
  But there's just so little happening.
• 22:29
  I'm not sure.
• 22:32
  I mean, hey, they just, they like it.
• 22:34
  They like what they like.
• 22:37
  Do you think that this is a show that would be better if it was in a more intimate space and you could see them a little bit better?
• 22:43
  Possibly.
• 22:43
  I'm not sure that that's like super helpful because like you're still gonna fall flat for me with the music and the plot.
• 22:57
  But...
• 22:59
  Would I be even more in awe of the staging and maybe some of the facial expressions that I didn't get to catch?
• 23:06
  Like maybe that piece of it.
• 23:07
  ah But I will say, and I didn't look, I'm curious what their ticket sales were like from when Darren was in and when he wasn't.
• 23:18
  Because I feel like, much like Chess, this is a draw because they have a famous person.
• 23:27
  musical theater around playing a role.
• 23:30
  Would it be the same if that wasn't the case?
• 23:36
  Well, I'll say this because of course I looked it up.
• 23:39
  Thanks Google.
• 23:40
  Maybe Heavy Ending struggled significantly ah before ah Darren Criss ah during that time.
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  It was well under 765,000 weekly operating costs.
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  And sometimes it dipped below 300,000.
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  So it did not do very well without him.
• 24:00
  And think you're right.
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  This is a show that like people go to chess to see um Lea Michele.
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  people went to see Jinx Monsoon and Mary.
• 24:10
  People are going to Chicago to see who's in Chicago.
• 24:13
  It's not always that you're going to see maybe Happy Ending.
• 24:18
  And that's cool, that's fine.
• 24:19
  And with that, we are done with our conversation of maybe happy ending.
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  Stay tuned for future episodes of the BSB Podcast.
• 24:27
  for joining us here today in our box seats.
• 24:29
  Until next, curtain call.