A man and a woman meet.  They fall in love.  They marry. They begin to have problems.  One of them cheats. They divorce. 

That’s life, but rather a bit depressing to be turned into a musical, right? After all, who wants to see a musical which ends unhappily ever after?

Composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown found an ingenious way to tell just such a story in The Last Five Years, his semi-autobiographical tale of a 20something couple whose relationship fails to withstand the pressures of having one of them achieve professional success that the other is unable to.  Jamie’s story moves from his joy at finally meeting the “Shiksa Goddess” he’s been dreaming of, and ends with the painful realization that no matter how hard he tried, “I Could Never Rescue You.” Cathy, whose songs alternate with Jamie’s, begins “Still Hurting” from Jamie’s betrayal and ends with “Goodbye Until Tomorrow,” sung just after the couple’s first date, when there were still countless tomorrows awaiting them. Joy and sadness side-by-side in an ending which packs an emotional wallop.

East West Players’ Asian-cast staging of The Last Five Years, powerfully directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera and exquisitely performed by Michael K. Lee and Jennifer Paz, wisely makes no attempt to “Asianize” Brown’s tale of a New York City Jew and the Shiksa Goddess he falls in love with. What it does is offer an acclaimed director a chance to put his stamp on this oft-performed musical (I’ve seen eight productions of TL5Y with a ninth coming up next month) and a supremely talented pair of performers the opportunity to appear in a show they might not normally get the chance to perform.

The resulting production is one of the best TL5Y’s I’ve seen, and easily one of the two or three best sung.

Every director puts his or her own stamp on The Last Five Years. A recent production found ways to keep Jamie and Cathy visible on stage throughout the show’s 80-minute running time, despite their being in different “time zones.”  In Rivera’s vision, Jamie mostly sings to an imagined Cathy, and vice versa. Sometimes this involves singing to an empty chair, sometimes to the air. The moments Jamie and Cathy share the stage are relatively few (except for the one time their stories intersect, halfway through, on their wedding day) and all the more powerful for their rareness.  When Jamie sings that “some people freeze out of fear that they'll fail, but I keep rolling on,” we see would-be musical theater star Cathy examining her headshots.  (We learn later about Cathy’s unsuccessful attempts at a major, New York-based career.)

Rivera begins Jamie and Cathy’s wedding song, “The Next Ten Minutes,” as a picnic in Central Park, with Jamie facing 2 o’clock as he points out Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment, and John Lennon’s. Cathy then joins him center stage, but facing 10 o’clock, as she assures him “I’m 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.” Even here, the director withholds Jamie and Cathy’s “together time” until the very last minute, so that when groom and bride finally turn to look at each other as Jamie asks Cathy “Will you share your life with me for the next ten lifetimes?” and Cathy responds “Forever,” and they embrace, the moment is earthshaking for having been delayed so long.

From here on, through Jamie’s eyes we see cracks starting to open in their marriage, while through Cathy’s we see their relationship becoming steadily more infused with the bliss of newfound love.  When an angry and disillusioned Jamie sings “I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy. I will not lose because you can't win,” standing by his side is a Cathy whose eyes reveal the joy of a woman who sees nothing but hope for the future.

The gorgeous Paz, who recently revived her career-making role as Kim in Miss Saigon—and nabbed the Ovation Award for it fifteen years after her first performance in the role—is clearly relishing the chance to show new sides of her talents here, something which she does … and then some!  In her opening number, “Still Hurting,” Paz’s pain is so palpable, you almost want to look away, yet you can’t. Later, she captures the ironic humor of “A Summer In Ohio” and gets laughs galore as Cathy auditions disastrously, singing “No don't look at my resume I made up half my resume... why did I chose these shoes, why did I pick this song, why did I chose this career, WHY, does this pianist hate me?!”  Hilarious!  And boy does this gal have a voice!

Lee’s stellar performance reveals all of Jamie’s goofy charm, the charisma which made him “the grand fromage” of the New York literary world, and the charm which won Cathy over.  Hearing Lee sing “The Schmuel Song” with a Yiddish accent is a particular delight.  Later, as Jamie’s story darkens, Lee’s “If I Didn’t Believe In You” and “Nobody Needs To Know” are heartbreaking.  And boy does this guy have a voice!
 
This is quite possibly the starkest fully-staged The Last Five Years I’ve seen.  A pair of black straight-backed chairs, a guitarist, musical director extraoridnaire Marc Macalintal at the grand piano, and a giant picture frame behind it all, onto which are projected images of various trees at various seasons.  That’s it.  Simple and spare ... and effective indeed.

Jeremy Pivnick lights John H. Binkley’s set to perfection. (Binkley also designed the stunning projections.) Best of all are Ivy Y. Chou’s costumes, which take Jamie from white to gray to black, and Cathy from black to gray to white.  Easily the most inspired costume design I’ve seen in a TL5Y production.

For those who’ve never experienced The Last Five Years, East West Players’ production is an ideal introduction. For those like myself who’ve seen this beautiful, moving musical before, Rivera’s vision makes for a fresh new look at familiar material. Either way, these are eighty extraordinary minutes.

Note: The Last Five Years is the second act of a two-musical program, begun by Stephen Sondheim’s Marry Me A Little.
East West Players, David Henry Hwang Theatre, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles. Through June 21. Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00.  Sundays at 2:00. Reservations:  213 625-7000  www.eastwestplayers.org

--Steven Stanley
May 12, 2009
                                                                   Photos: Michael Lamont