It was good while it lasted. Or was it? I’ve asked that question several times as relationships have crested and fallen. They say write what you know, and that’s exactly what composer Jason Robert Brown did when he conceived The Last Five Years, a temporal two-person song cycle inspired by his first marriage.
The Last Five Years premiered in Chicago in 2001, and since then, it has seen multiple revivals and a film adaptation starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. This production is the musical’s first Broadway outing.
Author Jamie Wellerstein (Nick Jonas—yes, that one) and struggling actress Cathy Hiatt (Tony winner Adrienne Warren) navigate conflicting personal and professional trajectories. Brown’s hook is that the intermissionless 90 minutes unfold in opposing chronology. Cathy’s story begins with divorce (“Still Hurting”), while Jamie revels in discovering his “Shiksa Goddess.”
Unless you peek at the Playbill insert song list (or know the score like many JRB fans the night I attended), the musical’s fleeting intersectional quality can be hard to follow. But it hardly matters with such musical compositions, orchestrations, and arrangements. The score—stunning in its complexity and melodic heft—is emotionally transportive. Does it matter whether Jamie and Cathy share the same space or merely hover in a suspended time warp?
Where The Last Five Years occasionally stumbles is in the chemistry, or lack thereof, between its two romantic leads. It’s sometimes hard to tell if the puzzle pieces don’t fit intentionally (like this was never going to work out no matter how hard they tried) or if it’s an onstage disconnect.
Still, when left to their own devices, and with crisp staging by director Whitney White and co-choreographers Jeff and Rick Kuperman, The Last Five Years delivers an undeniable emotional potency for anyone who’s fallen in or out of love.
1MC Takeaway
In a creative marketing strategy, producers filmed a music video of Jonas and Warren performing the musical’s finale, “Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You” at the famed Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn. If you’re feeling romantic, the carousel operates year-round in a glass-enclosed pavilion. Tickets are only $3, but don’t include relationship guarantees.
