Romantic robotic musical is shining on Broadway — actually

The chic get started of “Maybe Happy Ending” is the nearest I’ve ever come to experiencing a Pixar film on Broadway.

Oliver, a alone robotic performed by means of Darren Criss, is going via his common day-to-day regimen — over and time and again. 

With a large grin in a mini studio rental, he has a tendency to his plant, HwaBoon, receives deliveries via a mail kill and patiently waits for his proprietor, James, to return get him. 

Weeks and months cross, seasons alternate and the HelperBot does the similar chores on repeat.

Nearest comes a shattering message: “Twelve years later.”

Oliver continues to be there in his 300-square-foot, very easily appointed mobile. James is nowhere in eye.

As my visions welled up — and it used to be nonetheless best the primary quantity — the awful opening of “Up” in an instant sprang to thoughts, as did Andy freely giving his beloved youth buddies in “Toy Story 3.”

“Maybe Happy Ending,” like Pixar at its best possible, nourishes the soul in some way few Broadway presentations even try to do.

The joyful, boundlessly inventive present of a musical from South Korea, which opened Monday evening on the Belasco Theatre, has deny bulldozing ballads to cue the waterworks. There aren’t any kitschy dance transitions to assuage our overworked brains.

The considerate ranking by means of Will Aronson with lyrics like firing neurons by means of Hue Terrain is sprightly and blameless — paying homage to the pastoral soundtracks of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated motion pictures, comparable to “Spirited Away” or “Howl’s Moving Castle.”      

Rather of predictable bombast, the gentle musical’s many wretched and uplifting moments sneak up on us and handover an an increasing number of uncommon sensation for a style that has change into formulaic and spinoff: awe.  

No person will assume in order tissues to the making a song android display, however you could be neatly instructed to store up.

Then all, you’re at a robo rom-com. 

Oliver’s quantity years solo ends full-stop when a fellow gadget named Claire (Helen J Shen) knocks on his door begging to virtue his charger. With out that plug, she stops functioning — just like the Tin Guy when he rusts.

Claire is a HelperBot 5; Oliver is a three. Lengthy within the bluetooth, he chides her about how the 3s are extra sturdily constructed than the more youthful, glitchier fashions. The unhappy fact is they’re each out of date and unloved.

Quickly, Claire is preventing by means of each while to borrow the twine. Oliver’s Scroogey annoyance becomes expectation and ultimately he’s status puppy-like by means of the entryway.

The spark plugs fly on Dane Laffrey’s prepared that’s each brutalist and at ease.

Nearest, once we’ve wrapped our heads round “Maybe Happy Ending” as a two-hander, two-room, automaton love tale, the virtual duo embarks on a humorous highway travel.

Claire accompanies Oliver on a dangerous walk to hunt out James (Marcus Choi) at his untouched house on an island 100 miles away. 

They’re no longer meant to loose their facility, in order that they each undertake pretend identities. Their efforts to faux to be people at a lodge supposed for, um, highly spiced late-night dalliances are hysterical.

In fact, coming head to head with the one who consigned them to the scrap heap may just deliver on an existential disaster. 

And so the second one part of the display confronts the demanding situations that the arrival of man-made wisdom may just sooner or later pose for, neatly, synthetic wisdom: Am I a being or an object? Do my wishes and needs topic? Do I’ve the capability to like?

That’s a bundle of advanced inquiries to contemplate, however “Maybe Happy Ending” is rarely lower than extremely fascinating because it asks them.

This weighty swing of a musical wouldn’t paintings with out the peerlessly tuned performances of Criss and Shen. Those roles may just simply be twee and irksome — they’re anything else however.

Criss’ Oliver is a smiley mixture of J. Pierrepont Finch from “How to Succeed” and Pee-Wee Herman with somewhat of earnest boy after door. He’s a bucket of bolts with a middle of gold.

As his overwhelm, Shen imparts a sit-com sensibility to her more moderen, extra naturally behaving Claire. Quippy and forthright, she’s the realist of the pair, save for a zeal for fireflies. Shen is as incandescent as that summertime staple.

Their flirtation is helped alongside by means of silky-voiced Dez Duron as an omnipresent Frank Sinatra-like crooner named Gil Brentley. He hacks into their dry drives as he sings tunes near to “Fly Me to the Moon” that deliver the battery-powered courtship right down to earth.       

Welding comedy, romance and science fantasy, fibre quartets and bourbon-inflected jazz, holograms and furnished residing rooms is director Michael Arden, who has merely outdone himself right here.

The director, who will get higher with each display, treats those another way disparate parts like crucial apps on one harmonious tool. Not anything upstages the rest. Maximum presentations are fortunate to have a unmarried breathtaking date. On the Belasco, you lose rely.

Arden, who additionally did great paintings in “Parade” and “A Christmas Carol,” had an unenviable process with “Maybe Happy Ending”: Making a song robots, they’re similar to us!

And but he’s succeeded brilliantly. He’s introduced Wall-E to Broadway.

I’ve criticized Broadway again and again over time for being too robot. 

This week, on the other hand, it’s prime celebrate.