Theater Review—

Appreciating Sondheim, Through Johnson’s Story About Five Years Of Life And Love

By Julie Stern

“Jamie has come to

the end of the line

Jamie feels all

of the problems are mine

Jamie thinks he’s

feeling perfectly fine…

And I’m still… hurting.”

NEW MILFORD — So begins The Last Five Years,  Jason Robert Brown’s musical portrayal of all the joy and anguish of a failed long-term relationship between two aspiring young New Yorkers: Jamie, a 23-year old graduate student in Columbia University’s Creative Writing program, and Cathy, who is working as a cocktail waitress while she auditions for roles in musicals accompanied by a freshly minted degree in theater.

Jamie, a Jewish boy from Spring Valley, is working up his nerve to ask Cathy, his beautiful, blonde “shicksa princess” for a date.  Cathy, tired of the good-looking, self centered guys from her acting class, is ready to meet someone as sweet and modest as Jamie… Soon they move into an apartment together.

At the midpoint in their relationship they marry, demonstrating their commitment to their love, and allowing Cathy freedom from restaurant moonlighting so that she can concentrate on her career as well.

But while Jamie’s life is suddenly going “too fast” — the agent recommended by his professor “loves his book,” he is seized on by Barnes & Noble and Random House as the newest hottie in American publishing, and he is surrounded by flattering women all anxious to fawn over him — Cathy finds herself stagnating. The only roles she can get are in touring summer stock and road company productions, entailing exile to grungy boarding houses somewhere in Ohio.

The downward curve is inevitable. Cathy’s depression, her (well-founded) jealousy of Jamie’s involvement with the women he meets at parties she won’t go to, his exasperation at her unhappiness and what he sees as her lack of interest in his career, and things come to “the end of the line…”

The gimmick here is that as Jamie and Cathy take turns portraying the story (in musical dramatic monologues; there is very little actual conversation or dialogue), she tells her version backwards, beginning with her pain and despair at their break-up, while his account opens with his starry-eyed disbelief that she would be willing to go out with him.

Scott Wyshynski’s lighting design makes this work by focusing attention on one of the pair at a time, and Susan Pettibone’s direction makes good use of the stage, conveying intimacy even when there is no connection.

The performers are talented actors. Jeff Tuohy, who TheatreWorks regulars may remember from his role in the musical Batboy (he hung upside down in a cage), has the winsome facial mobility that makes him ideal for the part of Jamie.

Erin Zaruba, who plays Cathy, has the statuesque magnetism and the powerful voice (sometimes she belts out her songs with too much force for the small venue) to convey both the confident  New Yorker of the early stage, and the hurting woman at the end.

Jason Robert Brown, who wrote the book, music and the very clever lyrics, first saw his show debut in Skokie, Ill., five years ago, went on to see this show win several Drama Desk awards when it was produced Off Broadway in 2002.

From the program notes, it is at least partially autobiographical, but it is also a venture into Stephen Sondheim territory. Not only are the subject matter and the experimental structure reminiscent of Sondheim, but the way it uses song lyrics to make sharp, incisive psychological characterizations, and to convey a sense of time and place, bring to mind shows like Two by Two and Company.

I don’t mean to say that the show is derivative. Rather, the point is that if you like Sondheim you will really appreciate The Last Five Years.