The Last Five Years at SART
Bruce Steele: There aren't a lot of two-person, sung-through musicals — indeed, The Last Five Years, now running at Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre in Mars Hill, is the only one I think I've ever seen. It's a gutsy selection from SART Senior Artistic Director Chelsey Lee Gaddy to restart WNC live theater indoors after 15 months of lockdown. It's even more brave considering that Gaddy stars in the show. What were your first impressions after our long exile?
Edwin Arnaudin: Foremost, it’s great to be back inside with fellow theatergoers. As Gaddy told me in a Mountain Xpress interview, simply getting to that point at SART meant choosing shows that felt doable on every conceivable level several months ago, when the company had to decide whether a 2021 season was feasible. As such, they opted to resume with not just smaller shows, but ones that have streaming rights so that, in the event of a pandemic resurgence, they could still at least present them live online.
Without having a crystal ball to see that statewide restrictions would be lifted in time for opening night, a two-hander like The Last Five Years is a smart move, even if it presents certain distinct challenges within the Owen Theatre. Gaddy is clearly comfortable with the intimate venue, having performed there numerous times. As aspiring actress Cathy, she’s by far the more sympathetic character — especially since the story makes clear from the get-go that her famous writer husband Jamie (Richie Barrella) is a jerk. Both actors excel individually and in their shared scenes, but sharp as they are, the flawed material limits their emotional resonance.
Bruce: Gaddy and Barrella both wring full emotion (and occasional humor) from each song, and the music is pleasant and melodic, even if I doubt anyone left the theater humming the tunes. The composer-lyricist-playwright, Jason Robert Brown, based the show on the break up of his own marriage — which is not a spoiler, since the show begins with that split, as Cathy sings "Still Hurting." Cathy's songs then move gradually backward through time, while Jamie's start with their mutual infatuation five years earlier and move forward in time. Despite its short, 80-minute running time, the show is nothing if not ambitious, and it has attracted stars from Norbert Leo Butz (the original Jamie) to Anna Kendrick (Cathy in the 2015 film adaptation). What about it didn't work for you?
Edwin: There’s simply not much to the story. The lyrics reveal little about what brought Cathy and Jamie together, and the reason for their break-up is just as spotty, if not more so. It’s frequently a pleasure spending time with them, but their relationship isn’t one marked by big moments or revelations, which often made me wonder why it warranted telling. There’s also what feels like a missed opportunity to loop in the likely harrowing impact of 9/11, what with multiple scenes taking place in New York City in September 2001. Still, it’s a high-wire act for two performers to captivate an audience with song for 80 minutes, so it’s no wonder Gaddy and Barrella sought that challenge. They definitely rise to the occasion, but their talents deserve a richer narrative.
Bruce: The production team members do their best to give some weight to this light confection, with J. Ethan Henry's admirable succession of character-appropriate costumes — Jamie's droopy, skinny-leg pants made me smile — and the subtle but effective lighting and sound design by Andrew Zebroski, complementing Braeden Johnson's dreamlike set. Henry also directed, striking a balance between the characters' distance from one another (only one song, "The Next Ten Minutes," is a true duet) and the premise that they're a couple.
And that's really the crux: With Cathy and Jamie locked into their separate time lines, each is something of a ghost to the other, and they appear and disappear (for costume changes) while the other is singing. That's a real hindrance to building the emotional threads between them that we need to see grow and intertwine and fray and snap. It's great to be back in the theater (even with zero effort at social distancing), and marvelous to see talented people singing their hearts out. But the isolation we just survived is at the heart of this show, and it's something of a downer.
Edwin: I don't mind the loneliness on display in The Last Five Years. It feels like smart, intentional, hot-button programming on Gaddy’s part. Instead, I was far more bummed out by the show's incongruous flow. Cathy has several songs in the first half that link directly to Jamie's next number, thereby robbing attendees of the chance to honor Gaddy with applause — an issue absent in Jamie’s solos. Whether Henry could have worked around that problem without disrupting the production’s energy is debatable, but it subsides in the second half and allows for proper appreciation of nervous audition chronicle “Climbing Uphill."
Elsewhere, the (likely COVID-related) decision to use pre-recorded music instead of a pit orchestra works more often than not. However, Barrella has a tendency to over-sing, which is especially noticeable in Owen’s close confines and might have been tempered by live backing musicians. That audio issue is something that I fully expect to improve as the show’s run advances, and — like my other qualms with the production — is fairly minor with so much else going right song-to-song. Despite the small show not being the usual size we’ve come to expect from SART, it’s a welcome return and a fairly strong starting point for the company after a long, year-plus absence.
The Last Five Years has performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through July. For tickets and more information, visit SARTplays.com.
(Photos: Cheyenne Dancy/Courtesy of SART)
