the last five years

No, this isn’t about the next General Election…

Moira+I went along to the Brewery Theatre last night to see/hear Jason Robert Brown’s “The Last Five Years”. It’s a one-act musical (apparently it’s the first ever musical to be staged there) that spans a doomed relationship between Cathy, an aspiring actress (played by Catriona Mackenzie), and Jamie, a successful novelist (Matthew Ronchetti). The quality of the music is excellent and both actors have fine singing voices (especially Cathy), very ably backed by two highly-accomplished pianists. At times, I was reminded of the musical “Tell Me on a Sunday”… but hey, what do I know?
The production is very cleverly conceived (and simply, but effectively, staged) and takes the form of a series of operatic monologues (virtually no spoken dialogue and the only time the couple interact is when they get married) – with Jamie’s story played out in chronological order, while Cathy’s is done in reverse. This might sound rather perverse, but it actually proved very effective. 
A very enjoyable evening.