The Last Five Years

Following “Marry Me a Little” (see earlier review) and a 20-minute intermission, “The Last Five Years” was the second show of East West Players’ “An Evening of Two One-Act Musicals”.  We saw the preview performance on Saturday, May 9 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Little Tokyo district of Downtown Los Angeles.  Our cousin, Marc Macalintal, is the musical director of both shows that run as a double feature from May 13 to June 21 (extended from June 7).

During the intermission the crew turned around and removed the apartment set from “Marry Me a Little”.  They moved the piano out to center stage so we could see Marc play throughout the second show.  They also set up a chair for the guitarist.  Other than the musicians the set is fairly minimal.  Sometimes they have chairs out for the characters.  In the background and sides are large rectangular backdrops with different colored lights shining on them.  They occasionally project silhouettes of a tree (dead or alive depending on the state of relations?).  Since the musical consists of the two characters Jamie and Cathy singing about their failed five-year relationship, elaborate sets aren’t really needed.  They use an interesting concept with the costumes changing from black to gray to white or vice versa again depending on the state of relations described.  They have a costume change for nearly every song they sing and they go through just about every possible outfit in black, gray, white including a black blanket and black pants for Jamie during one song.

The musical has both characters playing out in song the details of a five year relationship, one from start to finish and the other in reverse.   In some scenes they sing to the other character that is unseen.  They only really share a scene in the middle.  It’s interesting to see their transformation in both directions.  They completely reverse their states by the end.  As part of the audience we feel the full brunt of the emotional swings perhaps even more so than the characters since they have five years to do so.  Each character has his or her own incomplete and possibly unreliable side of the story, though things make more sense by the end.  It’s like the beginning and end aren’t surprises but what’s interesting is what happens in between.  Still, they sing about more than just the relationship.  They mention the careers they both pursue with varying degrees of success and there’s something about moving to or living in Ohio.  I found some of these references confusing and a bit distracting.  However, I liked how one song had Marc and the guitarist as characters.

The lead actors do a great job portraying the characters as they change one way or the other.  We feel excited along with Jamie as he sings about first meeting Cathy and sympathetic as Cathy tries to patch things up towards the end.  They both sing well, very expressively, encompassing many different moods and situations.  Jamie even sings what seems to be a Jewish folktale for one song.  They make their characters’ complexities shine though the moods and situations, though.  They both have strong, though different, personalities; and then there’re the changes they go through.

The music differs from “Marry Me a Little” in that it sounds more pop and more modern.  In addition to Marc’s piano there’s the guitarist and what sounds like additional instrumentation that’s either pre-recorded or played in the background.  This gives the music a fuller sound that makes the sad songs more serious and the happier songs more celebratory.  For at least one song the music has to include both moods and does so adeptly.  It almost seems like an 80’s pop sound.  The songs sound a bit different from the usual “musical” sounding songs.  As always, Marc did a great job with the arranging.

My first thought at the end of the show was that it did seem like five years had gone by.  This is either a testament to the characters’ transformations or perhaps it’s the show’s intent.  The mood goes from bipolar to happy and back to bipolar.  This can get emotionally exhausting.  Still, they do a great job presenting it all through the acting, music, costume changes, and set.  In retrospect it is well placed with “Marry Me a Little”, that one being about two independent lives and “The Last Five Years” about two lives intertwined.  We get two versions of the story underlying the “Two for One” theme of the evening.  Most of my relatives who saw the shows either with us or before us preferred “The Last Five Years” to “Marry Me a Little” citing the more defined story line and preference for the music as reasons.  I still prefer “Marry Me a Little”.  These days we prefer lighter, more ordinary things to climactic drama.  But both have their merits.  Relationships, whether thriving, failing, or not existing at all are complicated and therefore make for great musicals.

Check it out at www.eastwestplayers.com.  We look forward to Marc’s next show.