Darren Criss on why playing a robot in 'Maybe Happy Ending' makes him want to cry
The personalization of technology is ever-expanding, from the smart device in your house that tells you the weather forecast to the phone app that navigates the best route home from dining out.
For Darren Criss, he's discovering this intersection of humanity and technology in a slightly more intimate way. The Emmy-winning Criss stars in Broadway musical "Maybe Happy Ending," alongside newcomer and fellow Michigan University alumnus Helen J Shen. He plays a "Helperbot" named Oliver whose owner sent him to a retirement home for obsolete robots. In the hallway of his apartment, Oliver meets Claire (Shen), a newer model robot whose battery life is diminishing. Together they escape their apartments in search of one last adventure: witnessing the fireflies in South Korea (where the musical is set) and finding Oliver's original owner.
"I'm playing a non-human so the one thing that I want to do the entire time is cry my eyes out," Criss, 37, tells USA TODAY. "Not because I'm sad, because there is so much resilience to the show. To say that the show is about loss, I think is maybe as misleading as if I was saying that it was a Korean show."
‘Maybe Happy Ending’ review:Darren Criss shines in one of the best musicals in years
Criss, who is half-Filipino, believes the show addresses both love and loss in the "age-old paradigm of 'Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?'"
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
"I think the show really does a good job of answering that," he continues. "These robots are not human. So the one thing that I can't do is really process that in a human way. The only people in the room that can do it is the audience. And with any luck they do.
"For me, every night, I just need like a good like five minutes to cry it out after because the entire show, I'm just gripping on for dear life not to do the one human thing that you want to do the most."
"Maybe Happy Ending" toured Asia before a 2020 production in Atlanta led to Broadway.
Like this production, Criss' starred in a music-forward TV series that championed resilience: "Glee." Criss reflects back on his time as Blaine Anderson fondly.
"It's not something I run away from and it means so much to so many people," he says. "It's like this really fun party that was had many years ago. And so when people reminisce about that party or that big game, it's not like we're talking about something absolutely horrendous. The show's called 'Glee' for God's sake."