DENNIS COURTNEY "The Last Five Years" reviews

Time-crisscrossing 'Years' superb

Kyle Lawson
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 8, 2005 12:00 AM

The Last Five Years, the excellent Actors Theatre production at the Herberger Theater Center, begins as it intends to finish, though you might say the same is true in reverse.

Jason Robert Brown's elegantly crafted two-character musical is unique, at least for now. It not only tells its story in a straightforward chronological manner, it tells it from ending to beginning. Both accounts occur simultaneously. There's no dozing off during this one.

Cathy (Stephanie Likes) opens the show by revealing that her marriage to Jamie (Jared Bradshaw) is over. A few minutes later, Jamie relives their first encounter. And so it goes, Cathy moving backward in time to that meeting, Jamie moving forward to the crash. Only once, at their wedding, are they on the same track.

It sounds confusing, but it's not, thanks to the meticulous direction of Dennis Courtney and Brown's expressive songs. Once the audience understands the process, the framework becomes a metaphor for the relationship between two people who love each other deeply but never are in the same place at the same time.

The heart tugs for Likes and Bradshaw, who couldn't be better in their portrayals of the ill-fated couple. She has the harder time of it chronologically, moving from despondent to optimistically cheerful. He has the task of making the audience understand why Jamie finally gives up on the relationship. Both succeed admirably.

There is strong support from a five-member combo led by the show's musical director, Jonathan Ivie. Paul Black's lighting design is invaluable in keeping the audience aware of time and place, and Desiree Maurer's setting is a metaphor in its own right, a wall that soars into the rigging but crumbles into broken bricks at its base.

But the lynchpin here is Brown. He's been called the heir apparent to Stephen Sondheim. On the evidence of The Last Five Years, that seems fair. He shares Sondheim's ability to express complex human emotions in music that challenges the heart as well as the intellect. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Jamie's If I Didn't Believe in You, given a show-stopping performance by Bradshaw. The lyrics not only encapsulate what went wrong but express a bittersweet yearning for what might have been.

Brilliant is not too strong a word.

Reach the reporter at kyle.lawson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8947.

Bigger than Necessary, but Still Great

Reviewed 3/4/05

The Last Five Years
Written and Composed by Jason Robert Brown
Directed and Choreographed by Dennis Courtney
Actors Theatre
The Herberger Theater Center Stage West, Phoenix
(602) 252-8497
March 5th - 20th, 2005
$20.00 - $39.00

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is proof that there’s life after Sondheim that doesn’t require settling for Frank Wildhorn. As brilliant as it is cynical, Brown creates a worldview that charts the life and death of a relationship by presenting it simultaneously from beginning to end in the eyes of up-and-coming novelist Jamie (Jared Bradshaw) and retrospectively for his shiksa Goddess and aspiring actress Catherine (Stephanie Likes). Though initially disconcerting, the synchronized movement from love to loss and from loss to love adds an ironic commentary that heightens the emotional impact of the story. The songs are melodic and the lyrics strong. This is a chamber musical, but in the hands of Dennis Courtney and Actors Theatre, the design element is made unnecessarily grandiose but survives on strong performances and Jonathan Ivie’s excellent onstage band.

Courtney’s movement and choreography is brisk and engaging. He has paced the show strongly and come up with several interesting stage pictures.

The strongest performance of the evening comes from Bradshaw. He creates an appealing schmuck with his strong voice and likeable way. He keeps Jamie true to life, and he has an electric personality. It’s easy to fall in love with this creation, especially during “The Schmuel Song.” Likes is good, although her offering is not quite as lively. Vocally, she aces Catherine’s songs, especially “Still Hurting” and “Climbing Uphill.” She just doesn’t quite rise to the energy level and involvement of Bradshaw. Still, the two of them together are an engaging disconnected duet.

Maurer’s set feels like window dressing to justify higher ticket prices. In a show such as this, sometimes less is more. Her and Paul A. Black’s use of the scrim behind the brownstone and orchestra leads to a lot of colors for each scene, but only one, the wedding scene, that works effectively. Lois K. Myers’ costumes work well for Bradshaw, and are generally unflattering to Likes. Ivie’s orchestra (Maureen Fleming on cello, Dasha Hlaenka on violin, Wes Kelly on bass, Carole Pellatton guitar, and Ivie on piano) is excellent and supportive of the singers.

Despite the overblown design element, this is still an excellent production of the type of theatre at which Actors Theatre excels. AT has survived its budget crunch, and the audience is the ultimate beneficiary.

Friday, May 27, 2005
Musical an impressive emotional success

By Jerry Stein
Post staff reporter

The experience of Jason Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years" is like drinking a mixed brew of champagne and castor oil.

The two-character musical, which opened Thursday night and closes the 2004-2005 at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, is a rather ordinary look at a bittersweet five-year relationship between a writer Jamie (D.B. Bonds) and Cathy (Heather Ayers).

But Brown's music, some zesty performances and the concept of telling the story make production notable.

There's no book.

The entire musical story is told in a series of songs or what the theater calls a "song cycle" with no intermission.

The songs rise to promontories of exaltation to pits of pain.

"The Last Five Years," smoothly directed by Cincinnati-born Dennis Courtney, uses the traditionally unwieldy convention of time manipulation to present its story.

It's a difficult concept that frequently goes awry as it does in Stephen Sondheim-George Furth's "Merrily We Roll Along."

Sondheim's 1981 musical tells a show biz story beginning at the end and ending at the beginning.

The technique serves to sabotage itself of dramatic interest.

Brown's time manipulation is more successful in "The Last Five Years."

Certainly, emotional effects are achieved.

But tricks with time probably are not absolutely necessary here as a way to involve the audience in Jamie and Cathy's relationship.

Brown initially shows Cathy's romance at its sorrowful ending, then she moves back toward its beginning.

Jamie's version starts with him in an elated mood and glorifying Cathy.

Through Betsy Adams' careful lighting, we realize the only time the two meets is when their experiences bisect at their wedding.

We know that they are actually conscious of each other because director Courtney has them touch and kiss each other here.

At all other times, the player who is in shadow represents the memory of the other actor found in full light.

This presence of the "memory figure" gives a certain joyousness or poignancy to the singer's moods depending on the tone of the song she/he is singing.

The problem between Jamie and Cathy comes down to one of the most common bogeymen to haunt a marriage - career conflict.

Jamie's a successful writer, almost too successful as he sings "Moving Too Fast."

Conversely, Cathy, an actress, is struggling.

She's not a star on Broadway but is relegated performing in stock.

She comically sings of the horrors of being "40 miles east of Cincinnati" in "A Summer in Ohio."

As a result of their unequal status on the success scale, Cathy becomes more demanding on Jamie's time.

And she ultimately doesn't accept his faith in her when he sings the affecting ballad, "If I Didn't Believe in You."

Their break-up occurs when Jamie realizes Cathy can't be reached. Failure has made her insular to his proffered love.

Ayers and Bonds have forceful voices that splendidly reflect the intense moods from jubilation to agony in this relationship such as Cathy's "Still Hurting."

But the pair also shade their voices for tender, sensitive ranges reflected with consid- erable loveliness in Jamie's "The Schmuel Song."

Further underscoring the romantic and depressive side of this fateful relationship/marriage is how Brown orchestrates the play.

The music, composed for a small orchestra, achieves ach- ing emotional depth in wrenching passages for Mari Thomas' violin.

There, too, are the dark, melancholic colors from Isaac Watras Mark Cosmala's sonorous cellos.

"Five Years Later" shows limitations in its anatomy of a marriage-gone south.

But the passion this couple expends, in at least trying to love, endows this musical with impressive emotional success.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS, Thursday night at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park, Mount Adams, performances Tuesdays-Sundays through June 19; tickets, $44-$52; call (513) 421-3888 for information or reservations..