'The Last Five Years': A look at love

This show begins like any episode of Law and Order — with signs of a struggle.

A white, semi-translucent scrim delineates three walls of an apartment, in which books and ripped papers litter the ground, the bedspread lies on the floor, cardboard boxes are busted open and memories are strewn about. A war has been waged here, and the company of “The Last Five Years” makes it their business to wind back the clock and show us how it all happened.

“The Last Five Years,”written and composed by Jason Robert Brown and produced on campus by Grind Arts Company, is a two-person show that follows the doomed marriage of Jamie, an arrogant aspiring novelist, and Cathy, an insecure struggling actress. The story of their troubled courtship presents itself through an unconventional narrative strategy. Jamie tells his version of the story chronologically, from his first lovestruck meeting with Cathy to the day he leaves her for another woman. Meanwhile, Cathy’s version unfolds backwards, beginning with her heartbreak upon Jamie’s abandonment and ending with the radiant first glimmer of love. The two versions (and thus the two actors) meet on stage only once, halfway through the play for the scene of their engagement, when their outlooks are fleetingly aligned. This structure enforces a cruel balance of joy and anguish — one of the characters is always on a high; the other is hurting. In the world of the play, happiness is never doled out without an equal dose of pain.

A play like this, with only two actors presenting the story with an intellectual narrative spin, has obvious challenges. How do you prevent stagnancy from creeping into what’s essentially a song cycle, where two actors pass the stage back and forth like a Bop It? How do you keep your audience from becoming hopelessly confused with the chronology? How do you convince an audience to mourn the loss of a couple they rarely see together?

This production faced these challenges head-on and grappled with them spectacularly over the course of the show. There’s a reason director Eamon Foley ’15 chose to make the walls of his set out of stretched, translucent material; the two actors are not the only ones creating this piece. Behind the scrim, two stunningly talented dancers — Trent Kowalik ’17 and Sophie Andreassi ’16 — move in silhouette, embodying Jamie and Cathy’s haunting memories of each other. When Jamie, played by Graham Phillips ’16, sings his first song, “Shiksa Goddess,” a number that captures the exuberance and promise of the couple’s first meeting, he doesn’t sing to Cathy (Deirdre Ricaurte ’16), who slumps dejectedly on the sidelines coping with the fresh wounds of heartbreak. Instead, he sings to a shadow of Cathy, created by Andreassi behind the scrim, who flits and poses flirtatiously above the real Cathy’s head. In a particularly innovative moment during this number, Phillips draws a rose on the scrim with sidewalk chalk, and a rose suddenly appears in shadow — Cathy’s hand. Throughout the show, with the exception of the one scene in which the two characters’ timelines meet, Ricaurte and Phillips share the stage with their shadow-partner, singing to the silhouetted figures as if they were their true lovers. The effect is twofold. First, stagnancy is chased away as solos suddenly transform into scenes. Second, we come to understand that these two people never really knew each other. The shadow of their spouse represents the person they imagine their spouse to be — a surreal, theatrical figure distinct from the authentic flesh-and-blood being who shares the stage with them. We begin to understand the underpinnings that doom this love from the start.

Phillips is, on the whole, delightful as Jamie. With his ice-blue eyes, chiseled jaw, perfectly coiffed dark hair and slightly feral, albeit charming, smile, Phillips constructs a man that is every bit thecharming jackass. His Jamie is one of those self-absorbed, prodigal talents to whom everything comes easily and early. Phillips shines most in “A Miracle Would Happen,” a number in which Jamie expresses his comic exasperation with monogamous life. “Except you’re sitting there / Eating your corned beef sandwich,” he sings manically, “And all of a sudden this pair of breasts walks by / And smiles at you/ And you’re like / ‘That’s not fair.’ ” Vocally, Phillips performs excellently, riffing his way through Jason Robert Brown’s rollicking rock score with impressive ease.

Ricaurte also does a very fine job of bringing Cathy to life as an energetic but self-doubting actress whose drive does not seem quite capable of powering past the daily frustrations of her profession. However, Ricaurte struggles to handle the vocal demands of the role. I feel for her — as a performer myself, I know how stratospheric and challenging Cathy’s score can be, and I can only imagine how taxing singing that role day after day must become. Nevertheless, in a show that’s almost entirely sung-through, a performer with consistent vocal trouble is incredibly distracting and detracts from the show's emotional punch.

There were also a few moments in the show where the innovations obscured the story. For example, throughout the show, Jamie draws the details of their lives together on the walls of their apartment — paintings, bookshelves, a door. At one point toward the end of the performance, Cathy, who has not drawn anything throughout the whole show, picks up a piece of chalk and draws enormous, abstract pink roses. But rather than illustrating anything remarkable in Cathy’s character arc, the moment confused me more than anything else. Also, at several points, both performers stumbled over forgotten lyrics, momentarily hinting at a lack of polish.

This is a show that refuses to lay blame. Jamie becomes arrogantly wrapped up in his own ego, while Cathy allows her jealousy of Jamie’s success to get the best of her, refusing to support his career when he needs her. We as the audience are not asked to take sides. This is simply a story of two people who weren’t meant to be together. Even if Jamie is unavoidably a prick, he doesn’t force Cathy to marry him. The Cathys of this world allow talent to seduce them even as they suspect that it will end in heartbreak. And whose fault, ultimately, is that?

Paws: 4 out of 5

Pros: Wonderful innovation, such as the use of silhouette and dance

Cons: Some story confusion, some vocal roughness