Take ‘Five,” in either Q-C or Clinton
If you have even the slightest interest in powerful, personal, modern musical theater, you should spend part of the next four days at “The Last Five Years.”
The Jason Robert Brown musical, through a quirk of scheduling and licensing fate, is onstage for a second and final weekend at both the Clinton (Iowa) Showboat Theatre and the Riverbend Theatre Collective in Davenport.
“The Last Five Years” documents the relationship and breakup of a couple – played by Allison Collins-Elfline and Dana Joel Nicholson at Riverbend, Nicole Horton and Joshua Sohn in Clinton – from two different perspectives. Suddenly successful author Jamie tells his story from beginning to end (there’s almost no dialogue in the 80-minute show) and struggling actress Cathy tells hers from the end to the beginning. The only intersection in the timeline is when he proposes.
It may sound gimmicky and convoluted, but it works.
The two productions are markedly different, and I will plead the apples-vs.-oranges defense.
Clinton’s plays more comedically, with Horton’s Cathy keeping a cute-and-bubbly persona much of the way through, and Sohn’s Jamie is a Bohemian artist. A vertical center-stage screen displays quotes about love and relationships between scenes, keeps track of the dual timelines and shows photos during the songs that serve at best as a third character and at worst as a distraction. A center-stage turntable is generally awkward and unnecessary.
Riverbend’s version is more dramatic, with Collins-Elfline’s Cathy showing aggression and frustration that dissipates in her reverse timeline, and Nicholson’s Jamie is a nebbish who gets lucky in his career and in love. Riverbend plays its version with a minimal set, and it has music director Robert Collins-Elfline and a lush-sounding string trio more at the forefront. (Clinton uses a piano-guitar-bass combination further back on the stage.)
Although there are some comedic moments – Cathy’s audition sequences and newlywed Jamie’s laments are the highlights of both shows – the drama from the lyrics is both personal and intense. (So personal that Brown’s ex-wife, on whom the Cathy character is based, threatened legal action.) It seems I know a dozen couples who have broken up in the past year, and I would almost recommend they not see this show because it’s so cuttingly personal.
Allison Collins-Elfline (Riverbend’s artistic director), Jennifer Kingry (who directed this production for Riverbend) and Showboat artistic director Patrick Stinson, who directed its show, all have expressed an extreme affinity for “The Last Five Years,” and after watching it – even once – it’s easy to see why.
It’s an emotionally charged and captivating show, filled with addictive rhythms and far-too-true-to-life situations.
What a great way to start the summer theater season.
