[This (p)review includes a mild structural spoiler in the sixth paragraph.]
“In fair Verona, where we lay our scene … A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life….”
Well, that’s quite a different play from Hub City Theatre Company’s production of Jason Robert Brown’s musical THE LAST FIVE YEARS, opening this Friday at Turntable. No one dies in L5Y, only a marriage. If you’re salty that I just gave you a spoiler without the alert, the opening line of the show is “Jamie is over and Jamie is gone…” Jamie is the show’s male lead—a young, ambitious novelist who experiences early success. His wife Cathy, on the other hand, is a struggling actress constantly facing the confidence-shaking anxieties that come with trying to make a life in the arts. When it comes to success, this young couple is, to borrow a biblical phrase, “unequally yoked.”
So what does all this have to do with ROMEO AND JULIET, whose opening lines are excerpted above? Both Shakespeare and Brown employ a paradoxically satisfying romantic trope. By equipping audience members with knowledge that the love affair they are about to see is beautifully doomed, both playwrights create a poignant longing for something that cannot be. Still, we find ourselves futilely rooting for the couples to beat their fate. Every time I watch ROMEO AND JULIET, a part of me thinks, “Maybe this time she’ll wake up. Maybe this time she’ll stop Romeo a split second before he drinks that poison. Maybe she won’t need that dagger...” But, of course, all this never happens. And so Jamie and Cathy’s union also ends—not with dramatic dagger and poison, but with banal ink pen and lampswitch.
So if we know things aren’t going to work out for this couple, what are we looking for in this play? By giving away the ending, Brown forces audiences to focus more on the why and the how rather than the what. Were Jamie and Cathy never really meant for each other? Were their career disparities too destructive? Were character flaws destined to compromise this marriage? Is there a bad guy in this show? Audiences will have a lot to discuss on the way home, especially if it’s date night.
Perhaps I’ve been focusing too much on the decline of this relationship and not on its rise. “Why and how” also apply to the process by which Jamie and Cathy fall in love, and there’s real joy in numbers such as “Shiksa Goddess,” in which a very Jewish Jamie professes his love for a decidedly non-Jewish Cathy. Or “A Summer in Ohio,” in which Cathy finds summer stock bearable only because she knows Jamie will be visiting soon.
But the structure of the play means we can’t enjoy these moments for long, and here comes the mild spoiler I warned you about. A distinctive feature of this play is that Cathy sings her songs in reverse chronological order, from the end of the relationship to the beginning, whereas Jamie sings his songs from beginning to end. The couple alternate songs but never sing directly to each other except for one deeply moving moment, all the more effective for its uniqueness. This design also means that the disparity between the couple’s perspectives is greatest at the beginning and end, making proportional emotional demands upon the audience. The play rewards multiple viewings, as early scenes can be fruitfully reexamined in light of information revealed later.
The ability of a work to reward multiple viewings is a hallmark of good art. However, I don’t want to overstate the grandeur of the show. L5Y isn’t ROMEO AND JULIET, nor does it aspire to be. But it possesses genuine literary merit. Certain lyrical and musical motifs recur, resulting in rich resonances for the attentive audience member. There’s also a persistent emphasis upon time and timing both in lyric (“The Next 10 Minutes”) and in action (the gift of a wristwatch; Cathy’s persistent waiting and Jamie’s promises to “be there soon”). Such an emphasis raises the question of whether Cathy and Jamie were simply, quite literally, out of sync. If their career timelines had aligned, would they have made it? Jamie acknowledges in “Moving Too Fast” that his career success came ten years sooner than even he could have dreamt. Was this professional blessing also a relationship curse? Did the clocks of the universe conspire against the young lovers? Perhaps that language robs Jamie and Cathy of agency. But the play’s thematic emphasis upon time invites scrutiny, and when Cathy sings, “I am not always on time / Please don’t expect that from me / I will be late / But if you can just wait / I will make it eventually…” one senses that her words apply to matters greater than simply being late for an audition.
No matter how finely crafted the music and lyric, the play is only as good as its Jamie and Cathy. A cynic might suggest that director Crista Beals has triple-cast this show out of some kind of ticketing strategy. The reality is that the talent was simply too strong to leave at a single or double cast, and even here the decisions were difficult due to the gifted people in Jackson. So triple-cast it is. Here are a few inadequate words about each couple:
Michael David Beecham & ABBEY HUBBARD
Jackson theater goers may know Beecham from playing Darcy in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, singing in the recent HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, and rapping as Mischa Bachinski in RIDE THE CYCLONE. In L5Y, Beecham’s full vocal repertoire is on display. But perhaps more fun for audiences is Beecham’s acting energy. Pay particular attention to the Yiddish fairytale “The Schmuel Song,” in which Beecham shimmies as the funkiest clock this side of Klimovich.
I first saw Abbey Hubbard as Annie Twilloil in THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG but missed her breakout performance as Mrs. Lovett in SWEENEY TODD. You could take Abbey Hubbard to any major theater market in America and she would more than hold her own. She is the whole package—crisp and clean with her dialogue, expressionistic in her movement, commanding a Broadway-quality voice that reflects serious training yet feels completely natural.
Cade Jett & DANA MANN
Like his fellow “Jamies,” Jett is also a veteran of HCTC’s remarkable RIDE THE CYCLONE and The Ned’s HUNCHBACK. He is the youngest Jamie, and his youth renders believable his career excitement. Note the energy he brings to “Moving Too Fast.” Audiences can sense his own breathless astonishment at his early achievement, though perhaps he is too immature, or fast-moving, to reflect on how such success will complicate his relationship with Cathy. While there is no Benson Boone piano leaping here, Jett does bring a dynamic physical energy to the stage.
With her feet firmly on the ground, Dana Mann brings a sweetness to her Cathy. But this sweetness contains subtlety. Pay attention to Mann’s performance of “I’m a Part of That.” Is she celebrating the role she plays as Jamie’s shiksa muse? Or is she trying to convince herself of something? Mann’s Cathy inhabits a space that many young professional women find themselves in: they long for the romantic features of a traditional relationship but also wish to retain their independence and not be seen simply as extensions of the men in their lives. There is some shade in the sunlight of Mann’s performance, and when this redhead gives Jamie hell in the standout early number “See I’m Smiling,” audiences will recognize that Mann has got a lot more going on than sweetness and light. Indeed, this number promises to be a showstopper for all three Cathys.
JAY SMITH & Erin Eller
During auditions, a theatre veteran leaned over to me and commented that there was just something about Jay Smith that makes you want to watch him—a charisma and likability that obtain in real life and extend to the stage. Audiences will love his Jamie, which will make it all the more disappointing when Jamie lets us down. A distinctive feature of Jay’s vocal repertoire is his powerful and supple falsetto / “head voice” singing, over which he has remarkable control.
If you saw JTG’s THE ADDAMS FAMILY last year, you undoubtably remember the scene-stealing Grandma, Erin Eller. Who knew that Grandma Addams had the vibrato of a young Audra McDonald? There are no scooped notes here; Eller is pitch perfect, and her transitions from talking to singing are particularly adroit. With her turn as Cathy, Eller moves from local supporting roles to taking on her first lead. Her vocal power will be a revelation. The blend of Smith and Eller’s voices is especially fine in the show’s only duet, “The Next 10 Minutes.”
And what is a musical without music? For weeks as stage manager, I watched actors rehearse to audio tracks. In the back of my mind was the nagging concern that the music would be so challenging, with funky time signatures and ridiculous runs, that we might be in for a train wreck when we rehearsed with live musicians. But as dress rehearsals began, bandleader Tyrell Williams on bass, Jared Alan Heldenbrand on keys, and Anna Sharpe on violin put those fears to rest. You could feel the energy in the room lift the first time the actors worked with the musicians. A special shout out goes to the gifted Heldenbrand for holding so many of these complex songs together. Williams promised to assemble a great team, and he has more than delivered, with Mario Kee (euphonium) and Joseph Kyle (guitar) set to join the team before showtime.
Rounding out the L5Y crew are Hanna Trainor (vocal director) Natalie Chhim (assistant director), Olivia Busk Roberts (costumes), Oliver C Koons (props), Erik Alexander, Peyton Mehr, and Christina Greenwell (tech), Kasie Smith (production manager), Isabella Gray (PR), Jake Beals (set), Kelly Maust (front of house / preview party) Ashley Leake (stagehand), and a host of other supporters, including the always hospitable Anthony Kirk, owner of Turntable Coffee Counter, who graciously allows HCTC rehearsal and performance space. Alex Taylor assisted with stage managing throughout much of the rehearsal process.
Whew. That’s a lot of people putting on a show about one couple, but the show is worth it. Each of the triple-cast pairings brings something distinctive, offering a different chemistry and set of interpretations. Audience members may wish to see more than one show.
Alas, regardless of which show you attend, I’m afraid the opening line will ring with the same finality: “Jamie is over and Jamie is gone.” But remember, Shakespeare also tells us that his star-crossed lovers are goners from the start, yet for 400 years that knowledge has never gotten in the way of audiences returning again and again to ache for them. Hub City’s THE LAST 5 YEARS elicits a similarly satisfying ache, and all you have to do is show up for it.
Cathy will be at the gate. Waiting.
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THE LAST 5 YEARS, directed by Crista Wilhite Beals and assisted by Natalie Chhim, opens this Friday at Turntable Coffee Counter downtown. It is a musical in a single act with a running time of 90 minutes, with no intermission. The show will run for three consecutive weekends, alternating casts each weekend. Seating is limited at Turntable; some dates are approaching sellouts already. Do not sleep on these tickets.
The show is suitable for most audiences, though note that the characters drop a couple of F-bombs, and there are some mild sexual references. Leave the kiddos with the sitter. Mature teens should be fine.
There is a preview party Thursday, July 31, at 6:30 pm. This premium ticketed event includes heavy hors d’oeuvres by the talented Daniel Palmer and a special performance unique to this evening.
Detailed show list with cast:
Friday, August 1, 7:30 pm [Michael Beecham & Abbey Hubbard]
Saturday, August 2, 7:30 pm [Cade Jett & Dana Mann]
Sunday, August 3, 3:00 pm [Jay Smith & Erin Eller]
Friday, August 8, 7:30 pm [Jay Smith & Erin Eller]
Saturday, August 9, 7:30 pm [Michael Beecham & Abbey Hubbard]
Sunday, August 10, 3:00 pm [Cade Jett & Dana Mann]
Friday, August 15, 7:30 pm [Cade Jett & Dana Mann]
Saturday, August 16, 7:30 pm [Jay Smith & Erin Eller]
Sunday, August 17, 3:00 pm [Michael Beecham & Abbey Hubbard]
Due to scheduling conflicts, the final weekend will feature recorded musical tracks. All vocals, of course, will be live.
