Boat Club’s Production of “The Last Five Years,” a musical about blissful love and heartbreaking loss, is told from two perspectives: Catherine, a struggling actress, and Jamie, a successful novelist.
First opening Off-Broadway in 2002, the show is a song cycle by award-winning playwright, composer, lyricist, and Tony Award winner Jason Patrick Brown. He also wrote the musicals “Parade” and “The Bridges of Madison County. His “The Last Five Years” is a semi-autobiographical story from Brown’s own failed marriage.
The musical’s intriguing storytelling method has Cathy singing about her side of the relationship, starting with and then moving backward from their break-up to their first night together, while Jamie narrates his story chronologically, beginning with their first meeting and ending with his last goodbye.
While in addition to singing solos and a few “duets,” the couple doesn’t sing directly to each other or intersect directly in their musical narratives until the middle of the show, on their wedding day.
These unique choices, while fresh and unexpected, do add a level of detachment for the characters from each other (inherent and integral to the script) and from the audience at times.
One key actor’s tool is playing off the words and actions of fellow actors and then giving reactions to each other onstage. This gets especially challenging when Cathy and Jamie don’t even get a chance to look at each other for most of the evening.
A few times, when the actors could connect more directly with the audience, their focus was off to the wings where the other actor had left the stage or off to the side and down. Most often, however, the two actors “make their case” with direct address to the audience.
Duluth actor Stuart Gordon plays Jamie and Minneapolis-based actress Vivian Kampschroer plays Cathy. Both are engaging and talented actors and singers who tackle a tremendously challenging musical score, getting stronger vocally as the show goes on.
Gordon is convincing as a cocky, arrogant writer whose ego grows even more when he is able to sell his first book, at the age of 23, to a big publishing house.
His strongest solo number is “If I Didn’t Believe in You” where he tries to convince Cathy that he is still in love with her at one of the low points of their relationship.
Gordon has opportunities to show his comic chops in “Shiksa Goddess” where he is thrilled to date someone other than the girls he met in Hebrew School, and “The Schmuel Song,” performing a funny mix of a Fiddleresque-like fable while lighting up a Christmas tree.
Kampschroer is especially effective in her comic songs such as in her audition piece for a role, “When You Come Home to Me,” and in “A Summer in Ohio” where she is lamenting being in a particularly awful summer theater company with a bizarre cast of characters onstage and off.
The song “The Next Ten Minutes” is the show’s most beautiful and affecting. It is the emotional highpoint of the couple’s love story that best showcases their voices in duet and shows the depth of their feelings for each other and their hoped-for futures with one another.
Brown’s music for “Last Five Years” is beautiful, lyrical, and lush, especially with the addition of strings: John Cox, bass; Amy Eichers, violin; Byron Klimek and Eleanor Harrison, celli; and Cory Clay, guitar; and Linda Bray, piano.
As the show’s musical director, Tanya Moore handles the show’s instrumental and vocal challenges expertly with both the orchestra and the actors. (Read a profile of Moore at destinationduluth.org)
It is vital for producers to bring lesser-known works to the table and for directors to agree to tackle them in order to broaden the perspectives and theatrical horizons of their audiences.
With “The Last Five Years,” producer Jason Vincent and director Julie Ahasay offer audiences the chance to experience Jason Patrick Brown’s ground-breaking piece onstage at Fitger’s. Kudos to them both for bringing a show many audience members had never heard of, let alone seen.
“The Last Five Years” is making its Broadway debut this March, starring Nick Jonas, one of the Jonas Brothers, and Adrienne Warren who is best known for playing Tina Turner and winning the Tony Award for best featured actress in the Broadway production of “Tina.”
Area audiences have the unique opportunity to see “The Last Five Years” at Fitger’s Spirit of the North Theater, even before Broadway audiences see it on the Great White Way.
Information on “Last Five Years”
February 13-15 7:30pm | February 16 2:00pm
February 21-22 7:30pm | February 23 2:00pm
Spirit of the North Theater—Fitger’s 3rd Floor
Tickets available at boatclubproductions.com or at 218-623-7065
Next Up for Boat Club Productions
“Doubt, A Parable” June 13-22
Avenue Q” September 25-October 5
