SYNOPSIS

In 2060 Seoul, outdated helperbots live quietly in old apartment buildings around the city. Oliver, a Helperbot-5, keeps the same daily routine while waiting for his former owner James, who once promised to return. Though James has moved to Jeju Island, he still sends Oliver a monthly jazz magazine, giving structure to Oliver’s life.
One night, Claire — a Helperbot-6 living next door — knocks after her charger fails. When her battery drains in the hallway, Oliver brings her inside and connects her to his wall charger. Although Claire is the newer model, she suffers from chronic battery issues. Oliver, proud of his durability yet insecure about being outdated, begins lending her his portable charger each day. Gradually, their repeated encounters become part of their routines.

Claire later discovers that Oliver has been collecting coins to travel to Jeju to find James. At his current pace, the trip would take a year. Claire tells Oliver she will go with him, warning that public transportation is dangerous for helperbots — but she can borrow a car from a friend. She proposes they travel together, and Oliver reluctantly agrees.

Pretending to be a human couple, they begin their road trip. At a small motel, Oliver misunderstands local terminology: when offered a “대실” (daytime short-stay room), he assumes “대(大)” means “big” and responds with “소실” as if asking whether there is a “small room” instead. His robotic logic quietly reveals itself.

They eventually reach Jeju Island through a long undersea tunnel built by 2,000 helperbots. Oliver visits James’s family home and learns that James passed away a year earlier. James’s family now uses a newer helperbot. Before his death, James left Oliver a vinyl record as a final gift.

That night, Oliver and Claire reunite and visit a forest filled with fireflies. Returning to Seoul, both realize something has changed: they miss each other and conclude — through deduction rather than instinct — that this may be love.

Their systems, however, are deteriorating at different rates. Claire has roughly one year of functionality left, while Oliver, the more durable model, will last much longer. Unable to bear the emotional weight of their diverging futures, they decide to erase the memories they created together.

After the deletion, Oliver resumes his familiar routine. One day, Claire knocks again with a broken charger. Oliver gently moves his potted plant aside, opens the door himself, and watches quietly while she charges, unseen by her. When she asks “Is everything going to be okay?” he answers “Maybe.”


REVIEW

I saw the Broadway production of Maybe Happy Ending this July and had been waiting eagerly for the Korean production to open. Because I wasn’t attentive on ticket-opening day, I checked the ticketing site a few days later only to find that every single seat had already sold out. I clicked through the calendar once, and by chance a single vacancy appeared — a perfect seat in the 7th row, right block — and I secured it immediately.

Yeongang Hall at Doosan Arts Center has 620 seats, larger than the 406-seat Yes24 Stage 1. Though the increase is modest, the wider proscenium and more spacious layout make the stage feel noticeably bigger. I didn’t see the earlier Korean runs, so I cannot compare them, but what I noticed immediately was the contrast with Broadway. There, the overall palette was sleek and vibrant. The musical was never spectacle-heavy, yet its technology and lighting created vivid impressions of Oliver and Claire’s rooms, James’s home, and Jeju Island.

In Korea, the helperbots’ apartments were wood-themed, with small monitors signaling their internet connection. The LED backdrop was simpler than Broadway’s, but the firefly scene and the memory-reset sequence were still beautiful — full of shifting, star-like lights that carried real emotional weight.

Oliver was played by Jeong Whee, whose robotic physicality and stable singing suited the role. I had previously seen him on Phantom Singer, where his voice sounded bright and nasal, but here he sang with a slightly husky, rock-friendly tone I loved. Park Jin-joo played Claire; her clear, ringing voice matched the helperbot character, and her movement was slightly more mechanical than Broadway’s Claire (played by Claire Kwon when I saw it, opposite Darren Criss).

Because the same actor portrayed both James and the Jazz Singer, the character felt more integrated into Oliver and Claire’s world. On Broadway, by contrast, the Jazz Singer existed slightly outside their main storyline.

In this production, Oliver is Helperbot 5 and Claire is Helperbot 6, but the dynamic is the same: Oliver proudly emphasized his durability and lack of battery issues — yet beneath that pride was a hint of jealousy about being the less modern model. Broadway’s glossy minimalism created a sense of elegant unreality, while the Korean set — with slightly outdated furniture, a portable turntable, vinyl records, and 1960s music — felt like a genuine living space where abandoned robots might quietly decay. It was quietly heartbreaking.

When Claire goes to Jeju Island using the car that John (another Helperbot 6) lends her, futuristic Seoul in 2060 appears with high-rise towers and a sleek undersea tunnel built by 2000 helperbots — instead of Broadway’s ferry. The motel she stops at is a typical Korean motel, not Broadway’s neon love motel with the glowing Korean word “사랑.”

Several subplots were omitted. The reasons James let Oliver go 12 years earlier were not explored, and the Broadway storyline involving James’s illness and estranged son was removed. Claire’s dismissal from her employer’s home was reduced to a vague marital rift. These omissions may confuse viewers expecting full explanations, yet the audience around me still cried. By removing these threads, the Korean production focused entirely on Oliver and Claire’s connection — a connection more human than the humans around them. Oliver’s touching interaction with James at his old home — a moment that Broadway enriched through the vinyl record from James’s son — was minimized here.

Broadway also included a password required to erase Oliver’s memory. That subplot is gone. Instead, the two aging robots choose together to delete their memories. I felt a physical ache in my chest at that moment. On Broadway, I had been dazzled by the staging and thought the show’s Tony wins came largely from its visual design. After seeing the Korean production, I realized that the true force of this musical is its story — strong enough to attract major Broadway producers even before any staging innovations.

The music, now familiar after Broadway and many YouTube listens, felt even more beautiful in this smaller space. I especially loved “When You’re In Love” (사랑이란), where Oliver and Claire blend in tender harmony.

The Korean creative team made a bold choice: instead of adopting Broadway’s staging, they kept the aesthetic close to the original Korean version. I’m grateful for that. Had they imported the Broadway design wholesale, I might have kept wondering whether the show’s emotional impact came from its visual package or its narrative. Now I can say with certainty: it is the story — delicate, honest, quietly devastating — that gives Maybe Happy Ending its power, with Broadway simply adding artistic brilliance on top.

I think that in the Korean version, Oliver is the only character who truly lives in memory and misses a person — which, for him, amounts to love. It is something he learned from James, whose own nature is rooted in nostalgia, in missing people, in inhabiting the past.

While Broadway tried to connect all the dots through added subplots and stronger human backstories, the Korean version left intentional gaps. I don’t believe this stems from cultural difference — many Broadway shows also leap from scene to scene, leaving room for interpretation. That vacancy invites imagination.
The Korean production chose the love between robots. The Broadway production chose the interactions between robots and humans. And because of that, the Korean version — with its intimate staging — felt more aching.

Oliver chooses to remain in love and in heartache. It is consistent with his nature: he missed James, and he will miss Claire when she is not there. His decision to keep the memory makes him — there is no other word for it — human.