BWW Reviews: THE LAST FIVE YEARS Plays Fantastically with Form at Actors Theatre

Relationships are messy. Theater, as a general rule, is not. However personal or epic the conflict, however naturalistic or painterly the scripting, the fundamental nature of stage action is that it is going to begin and end at different points, even if they are just points on a clock. So, the fun of some theatrical works can come from the artists playing with the storytelling process.

One of the most well-regarded examples of the upending of form for effect is Pinter's "The Caretaker." Seeing a love triangle played out in reverse poses an incredible question: exactly what element of attraction - Animal magnetism? Restlessness? Naivete? - could have made the risk of so much catastrophe worth taking the plunge? Writer/composer Jason Robert Brown plays a similar narrative game within an even more tightly structured form - the musical, with its chordal progressions, countermelodies and the like - to probe deep into the depths of a failed relationship in "The Last Five Years."

Brown takes a similar time tactic to Pinter's and gives it a clever escalation: this relationship's rise and fall is split in half and told through alternating sung-through solos, with one side told from beginning to end and the other side shown in reverse. "The Last Five Years" opens with Catherine (Autumn Hurlbert) trying to make sense of her now-ex-husband's one-sided decision to end their marriage. In the opener, "Still Hurting," all she has is the curt finality of his goodbye note and her unabating pain to go on. We segue to five years prior and Jamie's (Jed Resnick) exhilaration at the end of their first date, praising all the qualities about Cathy that will piss off his mother in "Shiksa Goddess."

Catherine's side of the story traces through the frustration of a failed acting career, alienation within her marriage, and other obstacles to a true sense of self, back through the optimistic early days that made Jamie seem like The One who had finally arrived. Jamie, a hot young novelist with nothing but greatness on the horizon, goes through the initial stages of trepidation, idealization, and encouragement of Catherine's independence, to the frustration of being newly married, to guilt, resentment, distance, and the final wrenching decision to end what is barely left.

The genius of Brown's musical is how every song, delivered from a sharply defined point of view and requiring the choicest of words and most assiduously plotted-out story components, reveals new dimensions about both characters. Kudos to Hurlbert, Resnick and director Meredith McDonough for the incredible amount of thought and care put into crafting these characters. Catherine and Jamie only directly interact in one scene, so the performers have to find chemistry and meaning in the idea of each other, the subtext in their own hearts and minds toward what the absent party is presenting them at each moment. The effort could almost be overlooked for how seemingly effortlessly they pull it off.

McDonough cleverly and economically stages the action on a merry-go-round deck with sliding doors that double as projection screens. The rotating platform's motion lends momentum to the proceedings and gives the performers several moments to roll out their dance moves as well.

Brown's compositions are varied and catchy, telling a complex story with the greatest of economy. The only possible improvement for this production could be the addition of drums, which would add the toe-tapping underpinning to the clever, endlessly singable book.

In a modern media atmosphere where reality television and blockbusters demand a clear-cut hero and villain, Brown triumphs in presenting a story in which that offers no easy answer to who is at fault. It takes a lot to make a relationship work, and just as much to have it fail. McDonough and company have created an enjoyable and deeply affecting evening of theater from a profound work that is one of the best musicals in recent memory. Catch this before the film adaptation hits screens. It may be one of those special occasions where the stage work excedes anything of which the camera is capable.

"The Last Five Years" plays though Oct. 26. For tickets, showtimes and more information, go to www.actorstheatre.org.

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