The Last Five Years

Is there anything more challenging to stage than a song cycle? While larger-scale musicals provide ample opportunity for dance numbers, impressive choreography and vibrant character work, a sung-through musical with just two characters demands a lot more imagination. Jason Robert Brown's bittersweet musical The Last Five Years tells the story of two New Yorkers who fall in and out of love with one another over a period of five years. What makes the musical particularly poignant is its chronology: Jamie's story is told from the beginning of the relationship to its end, while Cathy's is told in reverse. They take turns singing, only meeting at the halfway point at their wedding.

This production, filmed at London's Southwark Playhouse in 2021, sees the two actors accompanying one another on a grand piano at the centre of a rotating stage. The movement of the stage offers us different viewpoints on the characters and their stories, and also helps create momentum. It has the feel of a casual evening recital, with both actors – Molly Lynch (Cathy) and Oli Higginson (Jamie) – integrating the piano naturally into their performances. The piano is also utilised as a mini stage onto which the characters can place props to illustrate the stories they are telling, something that can occasionally feel superfluous. The rest of the band is set above the stage, behind a large ‘L5Y’ light display.

Brown is known for his punchy, witty lyrics, which do so much of the heavy lifting in this musical. This, combined with the constantly changing tonal shifts between songs, means there isn't a great need to overly saturate the production with props and staged movement. While minimalist in its approach, there are moments in this production where the choreography feels a little too fussy, with too many props introduced. That said, the song cycle is a restrictive form, and this could be a good example for teachers to show students and give them ideas for staging.

The wedding song – ‘The Next Ten Minutes’ – is a particularly good example of effective staging, as it finally brings the two characters into conversation with one another. They face away from one another on the piano stool, taking turns to sing before facing one another to sing together.

While the performances from Lynch and Higginson are technically very strong, this production feels as though it wants to be minimalist – but fears oversimplicity. It would make an excellent teaching resource for lessons discussing stagecraft, direction and prop use.

digitaltheatre.com