Last Sunday we went to MetroStage in Alexandria to see The Last Five Years, a musical (or more aptly, song cycle) by Jason Robert Brown. I hadn’t known anything about the show until recently; one song from it, “A Summer in Ohio,” was performed at Signature Theatre’s concert in Ballston last month, and it intrigued me so much that when I heard MetroStage was producing it, I figured it’d be worth checking out. It’s really a lovely show, about two young people in a relationship: Jamie, a successful writer, and Cathy, a struggling actress. The framework of the show is that with each song, she tells her story going backward, starting with the breakup of their marriage, while his goes forward, starting with their first meeting. It’s poignant since you know how the relationship ends, and interesting to track the very different emotional trajectories of the two characters. There are also some very funny moments. For example, “Climbing Uphill,” in which we hear Cathy’s anxiety-ridden inner dialogue while she sings an audition song, is hilarious.
The two actors and the five-member orchestra really handled this show well. This production at MetroStage runs through July 31. By the way, the off-Broadway cast recording stars Sherie Rene Scott and Norbert Leo Butz (no shortage of names here), both of whom are now in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Aside: Speaking of “five years,” it’s now almost five years to the day that I moved to D.C. Perhaps a quick look back over the last five years is worth a blog entry. When I get around to it.