"The Last Five Years" 16 Years In

Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is a sturdy and stubborn piece whose charms and problems persist from the Northlight premiere in 2001 to Camelot Theatre's current production.

Chris Jones's Variety critique of The Last Five Years' world premiere praises the emotional range of the score, but finds fault with the underdeveloped characters. Change the names of the artists involved, and he could almost have been writing about Camelot's revival.

The Last Five Years follows the birth, life and demise of Jamie (Nathan Monks) and Catherine's (Amanda Andersen) five year love affair. It follows Jamie's story chronologically, and Catherine's in reverse chronology: his arc begins with the first blush of love, and hers with reading his "Dear John" letter. For the most part, the musical is structured around solo numbers, with duets when their stories intersect during the wedding.

Livia Genise, artistic director of Camelot and director of this production, writes in her program note that she chose this particular play because "...it resonates with me. We all go into a love relationship, any relationship really, with all the naiveté and hope that make us who we are. And once you 'open your heart, one stitch at a time,' you may get hurt. But one thing is sure; you are never quite the same person again. And sometimes, that's a good thing." To paraphrase, she chose this text because the story resonates with her. In spite of that, her production deemphasizes narrative in favor of music. And maybe that's a good thing. The Last Five Years has an exciting score, into which both Monks and violinist Beth Martin are particularly successful at sinking their teeth and horsehairs, respectively. Genise thinks that this play asks "who is responsible for the relationship not working?" and that her "audience will ultimately decide based on whose story resonates with them the most." I contend, and Variety's Jones seems to agree with me here, that The Last Five Years is not open to such a Rashomon-esque reading: our sympathies are clearly meant to rest with Jamie. By structuring Jamie's story chronologically, we can follow his logic as to why he feels a relationship we're told at the outset is doomed is a good idea. Catherine does not have that benefit. By making a Jamie a successful novelist and Catherine a struggling actress who is, it's implied, jealous of his success, Catherine is too easy to read as a nagging wife and deuteragonist in her man's story. She's too hard to read as a protagonist. A marked difference in singing abilities between Monks and Andersen only serves to highlight these textual problems. In fact, and I'll go back to Jones' critique of the Northlight premiere again, Brown's created relationship reads as a little sexist. In short, The Last Five Year's songs are good and its story's not, and it's been that way for the last 16 years.

Camelot Theatre's production reproduces the qualities and failings of The Last Five Year's world premiere verbatim, suggesting that these are not brought to the script by any particular theater, but in fact hardwired into the play's DNA. The music's good enough, though, that audiences continue to be willing to forgive the story. Thus, the real danger with this play, though, lies in artistic directors like Genise with whom the story actually resonates. Thankfully, Genise deemphasized narrative in her production by playing fast and loose with temporal landmarks: there's only one projected on the scrim after the first number. By relying on her established musical taste and musical background, Genise emphasized the part of The Last Five Years that works and deemphasized the part that doesn't.