Belasco Theater, New York City – Matinee Performance, March 22, 2025
By Danny Rutberg

Let me set the stage for you. This review is as much about the reviewer as it is about the play.

I attended the matinee performance of Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theater on March 22nd — just a month before what would have been my wife Norma’s 72nd birthday. I woke up on a Saturday morning and had no plans so I decided to spend the day in Manhattan. I went online and purchased a ticket for a play that one of my friends in the Bereavement Group I had attended had seen and raved about. I went alone, which is something I am still learning how to do in this chapter of my life. Julia Cameron, in her book "The Artists Way, calls them Artist Dates.

I went to MOMA first to see what was new and to people watch.  I enjoy trying to identify which are domestic tourists, local locals and those visiting from abroad.  We always enjoyed walking the floors of museums. As a photographer I feel pulled toward some canvases and pushed away from others. I often take photographs of the people looking at the art as well as photos of the sculptures and canvases hanging on the wall. The last time we were there Norma tired quickly and in less than a half hour we were in an Uber on the way back to our hotel for her to rest.

I enjoyed my visit at the museum and decided to walk to the theater and grab brunch on the way.  I stopped at Un, Deux, Trois which is next to the Belasco and had a wonderful meal of Escargot and a vegetable crepe. When I walked out of the restaurant the line for ticket holders was around the corner of 44th and sixth but it began to move quickly as soon as I got in the queue.

Yes, the play: The story centers on two obsolete “Helper Bots,” one male and one female, living in adjacent apartments in a Bot Retirement community. He, a reliable Model 3, still waits patiently for his master’s return — as if loyalty alone could stop time. She, a more advanced Model 5, fights a failing mobile charger and a battery for her power supply that never quite fills up. Their connection is not quite a Romeo and Juliet tale — though in its own way, it carries the bittersweet ache of one.

They go on a journey, facing the strangeness of the outside world and the uncertain rhythms of love, companionship, and purpose. By the end, they arrive not at a fairy tale conclusion, but at what they call a maybe happy ending — a phrase that lingers like the final note of a song you didn’t realize had already ended.

But here’s what elevated this experience for me: the staging was nothing short of brilliant. The set design was a fluid choreography of space and movement. Floors shifted electronically, apartments glided seamlessly together, and characters ascended and descended effortlessly on platforms that rose and fell. The video effects and mechanics were so smooth, they felt organic — like another character in the story, silently guiding their dance toward connection.

There were other supporting figures woven into the story — a Sinatra like Jazz Singer, former bot owners who drift in and out of memory and scene — but the heart of the play revolved around the leads.

At the performance on the 22nd, Steven Huynh, an understudy, made his Broadway debut in the role of the male bot, Oliver. He was extraordinary — his performance had the quiet vulnerability and nuanced timing of someone who seemed born for the role. His chemistry with Helen J Shen, who played the female bot, was pure synergy. They moved together with the ease of longtime scene partners, each beat calibrated and alive. It’s no small thing to play a robot convincingly — to walk the fine line between mechanical and deeply human — and both actors did so with remarkable grace.

What struck me most, though, was how much their journey echoed mine.

I lost my wife of 46 years three years ago. For the first two of those years, I waited for her — not in body, but in spirit. I stood still, furious at the universe for stealing her, secretly imagining that she’d reappear and tug me by the hand again out the door toward our next adventure, our next dinner with friends, our next dance. Watching Maybe Happy Ending, I saw myself in that faithful Model 3 — still plugged into the past, still hoping for a familiar hand on my shoulder.

But I also saw in the play a gentle offering: that connection, however fleeting, still matters. That it’s okay to begin again, even if you’re unsure what form that beginning will take. That a maybe happy ending is still an ending worth reaching for — and maybe, just maybe, a beginning worth walking toward.

So yes, I’d recommend it — not just for the performances or the set (which are both outstanding), but for the way the story speaks, softly and without fanfare, to those of us still navigating life after love. You don’t need to have lost someone to be moved by this play — but if you have, you’ll feel seen.

I left the theater with the feeling that I had run through the entire range of human emotions and promised myself I would stock up on replacement parts while I still could. I then walked out into the New York sunlight not with a sense of resolution, but with something softer — a quiet echo in the heart. Not grief. Not joy. Something in between.

Maybe hope.
Maybe love.
Maybe a happy ending.