There are 16 songs in the one-act musical that just opened at MetroStage and most of them are very good. All of them are sung very well by the two members of the cast. Tracy Lynn Olivera gives a touching performance, which is what local audiences have come to expect from her. Mark Bush hasn't had as much exposure in the area, but this show makes you want to see him in more major roles in the future.
The musical is "The Last Five Years," by Jason Robert Brown. It is his first major work after winning the Tony Award for his score of the Broadway musical "Parade." Yet, "The Last Five Years" is very different from that big production with its large cast and sprawling story and sweep of history.
This musical tells a small and intimate story: the tale of a failed marriage as seen through the eyes of the couple who failed to create a lasting relationship. It is a story that has been the subject of so many plays, novels, movies and musicals over the years that you might think there is no new way to do it and no new points to be made. Brown finds plenty of fresh approaches and insights, and had the good sense to keep the entire piece in proportion, filling an hour and a half with highlights, and not trying to stretch it to something bigger or longer.
Each of the songs is a carefully crafted new look at a situation or emotion in the course of the relationship between his two characters. Brown has strong powers of observation, a great eye for revealing detail, a felicity for unpredictable rhymes and quite a sense of humor. His music is as fresh as his lyrics, with strong melodies and intriguing rhythms.
Brown orchestrated his own songs, a relatively unusual thing these days. His arrangements are for a small orchestra of a piano, a guitar and three strings covering the full tonal range: a bass often played with a bow, a mellow cello and a violin to soar to upper registers. Leading them from the piano is music director Howard Breitbart. The blend of vocal and instrumental work is often seamless, probably a reflection of the fact that Breitbart and director Jane Pesci-Townsend have worked together frequently of the years.
AS FINE A COMPOSER and lyricist as Brown has proven to be, his work as a playwright creating what is called the book for this musical — the structure including the plot points, character traits and emotional revelations that must be covered in each scene or song — is less successful. He adopts a highly formalized structure for this show but fails to make it clear to the audience just what that structure is. As a result, it can be very confusing for a while unless you come into the theater with an understanding of that
structure.
That being the case, here's a synopsis that will help you: The story of the meeting, courtship, engagement, wedding, honeymoon, marital difficulties and final divorce of Kathy and Jamie is told from the view of each in alternating songs. However, the story as she remembers it is told in reverse chronological order as she looks back on her years with Jamie, while his memory runs through the events in the order they actually happened. Only in the middle, at the time of the proposal and the wedding, do the two come together and sing a duet.
Armed with that brief explanation theater-goers can sit back and enjoy this very enjoyable musical. It will be playing at MetroStage through July 24.
Brad Hathaway has covered theater in Virginia, Washington and Maryland as well as Broadway, and edits Potomac Stages, a Web site covering theater in the region (www.PotomacStages.com). He can be reached at Brad@PotomacStages.com.