The Last Five Years is an astonishing off-Broadway musical, that has been performed across the united states and internationally. Yet, this show is often unknown by even the biggest theater fans, due to its lack of ability to make it onto Broadway or even a London stage. Yet as I watched the show I was very intrigued and drawn to the story.
The musical tells the story of a five-year marriage, of aspiring actress Cathy Hiatt and novelist Jamie Weller stein. The musical alternates perspectives, by having Jamie and Cathy take turns telling their version of their marriage, through monologue typed solos.
The most interesting aspect of this show is that Cathy tells her side of the story in reverse chronological order (telling her narrative by starting at the end of their marriage and going backwards until she gets to when they met.), whereas Jamie tells his narrative in the order it chronologically happened.
This show is based off of the failed marriage of Jason Robert Brown, who wrote the music, lyrics and book for the show. Due to this factor the songs has such raw emotion and passionate lyrics, that make you feel like you are in the minds of the characters.
I liked that the composer didn’t take this opportunity to make himself seem like he was “in the right” in their marriage issues. He used this platform to tell the story as it happened, showing both him and Cathy, with all their faults and charms. I was amazed at how well he captured Cathy`s pain throw-out the piece. It made me wonder why he didn’t see what he was doing to her during those years, until it was over.
I liked that the composer didn’t take this opportunity to make himself seem like he was “in the right” in their marriage issues. He used this platform to tell the story as it happened, showing both him and Cathy, with all their faults and charms. I was amazed at how well he captured Cathy`s pain throw-out the piece. It made me wonder why he didn’t see what he was doing to her during those years, until it was over.
In 2015, Anna Kendrick (Becca from the Pitch Perfect films) and Jeremy Jordan (Jack Kelly from Disney`s Broadway adaptation of Newsies), starred in a movie version of the musical.
The movie changed two major things from the stage production, but these changes I think made the movie extremely more interesting and more than the stage production.
In the stage production the two main characters do not sing together or even acknowledge the other one’s presents (expect for when their stories intertwine and they sing about the wedding proposal and the wedding day.) this is one of the things they changed in the movie, which I felt was a smart idea. It brought life to the musical and helped the viewers to be able to picture the moments they sung about. Whereas watching the two characters sing alone on stage, with only a couch and a door, was extremely dull! This factor, in the stage production, made it harder to pay attention to the lyrics, which were very important to the musical. The lyrics clued you into the time changes as well as the story line.
In the stage production the show consisted of only two actors. The movie added background dancers and other extras in both the musical numbers and nonmusical scenes. This also helped the musical to become more exciting, in the same way adding the interactions did.
Musical Me 