AISLE SAY Florida
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
by Jason Robert Brown
Directed and
Accompanied By Michael Sebastian
Backlot Arts at East
Village Cabaret
6265 Lake Osprey Dr.,
Sarasota
(941) 373-3933, To
Feb. 18, '08
Reviewed by Marie J.
Kilker
East Village Cabaret, newly patterned after intimate New
York-style venues, bears not the faintest resemblance to the rugged warehouse
from which Backlot Arts moved last fall. With a return to runs of plays via the
musical drama The Last Five Years, the move is complete. Scene and show make a
fine match. We come up close on this sung-through love story and its reverse,
just as Cathy and Jamie reveal it—she beginning at its end "Still
Hurting" and he at its start "Waiting" for love. Both sing their
sides of the story mainly in monologues, coming together only for a marriage
proposal and subsequent ceremonial duet. Steve Dawson and his real-life wife
Dianne Dawson bring authenticity as well as considerable vocal and dramatic
talent to their roles. Her soprano is glass-clear, not strained even when tears
swell. He wrings emotion out of many lines, but gets laughs-out-loud describing
Jamie's thoughts of a "Shiksa Goddess." A Christmas story of a
"Schmoo" is equally funny. There's a curtained backdrop for scenery,
two chairs and a few brought-on props, but with all the simplicity, a rather
astonishing number of costume changes. They're made with ease both on and
offstage, often helping define time, place, action.
Like his monologues, Jason Robert Brown's music varies in type and
tone: ballads, jazz, folk, funk. Sounds as well as dialogue delineate both
personalities and moods, and the Dawsons are up to them all. As a lyricist,
Brown is wise to emphasize assonance, since he sometimes strains for rhyme
(e.g., think...sink). As a playwright, he creates types we easily recognize.
Jewish Jamie comes on as a budding fiction writer, falls in love with a
gentile, and finds temptation grows along with obligations to publishers and
public as he succeeds. Cathy, an aspiring actress, gets sidetracked into
thinking she'd love being a wife and mother, then prefers not to go to Jamie's
office or readings. Pursuing their careers, they're often separated by miles as
well as ambition. Were they too different to succeed in marriage? At too early
a stage in their lives? Torn apart finally by working far apart? Did they fail
to meet each other half way or was mutual unwillingness to compromise or
sacrifice self the cause of their break-up?
Brown leaves us to speculate on the reasons for the end, because
there's no doubt what the end is.
His structure, then, is both the glory of the piece and a dramatic
shortcoming. We always know the end of the story, so there's no dramatic
suspense. Yet the reason for the end of the marriage isn't satisfied, though
devotion to the breaking up far exceeds attention to the relationship's development.
We're not even sure if it was simply a case of "opposites attracting." The Dawsons' performances,
along with Michael Sebastian's enthusiastic direction of them and the music,
put so much sparkle into the characters that we may well forgive their lack of
dimension.
Alternate casting is said to give a different spin on The Last
Five Years. For half of the performances Berry Ayers plays Jamie and Katherine
Tanner plays Cathy. Schedules and tickets for the non-stop 90 minute dramatic
song-cycle are available at www.SRQBoxOffice.com
or by phone.