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When Robots Meet Cute: Maybe Happy Ending
“It might feel like 2064 on the surface, but in its nostalgic, rechargeable heart, the show parties like it’s 1999.”
Our protagonists can’t like each other too much at the start: Oliver (Darren Criss, as shellacked as a brunette Ken doll, with similarly hinged joints) is a Helperbot 3, an older model of a popular line of humanoid robots that are essentially Jeeves powered by battery. These days, Oliver lives in a compound of efficiency apartments reserved for decommissioned Helperbots, listening to James’s favorite mid-century big-band leader, the fictional Gil Brentley (Dez Duron), and regularly spritzing his best friend and only conversation partner, Hwaboon, who happens to be a succulent. There are also moments of beauty: The sequence in which Claire and Oliver finally encounter the fireflies on Jeju unites set, video, and lights (by Ben Stanton) in a luscious swirl while also bringing a section of the production’s orchestra onstage to striking effect.
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