by Caroline Cronin The Last Five Years continues at the Southwark Playhouse, London until 28 March 2020.. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ If ever proof was needed that the path of true love does indeed never run smooth, here it is, laid bare in this emotional and innovative rollercoaster of a musical. Jason Robert Brown, musical, london, theatre. Season: 3 – 27 April 2019 (previews: 29 March – The lust, conflict and hypocrisy it encapsulates are underscored by brooding music that envelopes the words in a darkness of which Rachmaninoff​ would have been proud. Shorthand versions don't cut it. Every early song impresses as do the constantly strong vocal and physical performances of Lynch and Higginson, but the ‘hairs on the back of the neck’ test isn’t really passed until Jamie and Cathy sing ‘The Next Ten Minutes’ and the emotional intensity goes up several notches. Brown cuts no corners with these characters, drawing them with a sophistication that was previously uniquely Stephen Sondheim's domain in musical theatre. All contents © Musical Theatre Review, 2013 - 2019. Dann M Super Reviewer Jun 21, 2015 The time-lines meet in the middle with their wedding, the only time the two characters actually sing with and to each other. Add in the innovative visual distraction of a beautiful black piano on a constantly revolving stage and the impressively intense performances of Molly Lynch as Cathy and Oli Higginson as Jamie and the 90 minutes absolutely flies by. For information about our privacy practices, click here. The Last Five Years, like successful relationships, is harder than it looks. If there is no immediate remedy for this she would simply be better off not singing as loudly. John Shand has written about music and theatre since 1981 in more than 30 publications, including for Fairfax Media since 1993. Indeed, Jamie sings one of the great songs of the new century in Nobody Needs to Know, when he has embarked on the adulterous affair that ends his marriage. All rights reserved. Michael Scott-Mitchell's bare-stage set has two small revolves that director Elsie Edgerton-Till uses to create metaphorical implications of the two timelines passing like trains. This is the moment when you sense the whole audience becoming immersed as one in their creative and emotional struggle to make things work. The score is a pop-pourri of influences, with dastardly wide singing range. There is only so much personal pain and joy you can stand in one evening and you know from the start that dissecting any five-year relationship isn’t going to be all wine and roses. For information about our privacy practices, click here. His is an electrifying performance in terms of complexity, nuance and both vocal and physical energy. Any longer and the audience’s collective heartstrings, as good as this is, could be stretched to breaking point. “This musical will resonate with anyone who has ever been, or ever hopes to be, in love.”. But “The Last Five Years” remains to me what it always was: a series of nicely turned contemporary show tunes that add up to something less than a wholly satisfying musical… The decision to cast an international actor to play the lead in a new production of the musical Pippin is another snub o... Australian Musical Theatre Festival appoints Tyran... Pippin casting decision snubs local talent. His emotionally incisive, ferociously energetic, and deeply human scores have brought his unique voice and highly personal songs to stages all over the world. Were this merely an intellectually clever inversion of chronology it would amount to little, but, as these two narratives intersect, they don't just bend time, they bend perspective. So Cathy's first song is about Jamie (Christian Charisiou​) having left her, while Jamie's first is about having just met and been smitten by Cathy (Elise McCann). Jason Robert Brown’s acclaimed 2001 musical, The Last Five Years returns to the Sydney stage in a new production at the Ensemble Theatre for a strictly limited season from 29 March 2019. Their affair is further complicated by Jamie being an author whose star is in the ascendant, and Cathy an actor whose star has fallen so low as to be touring bleak Ohio rather than successfully scrounging a role in New York. Inspired by the American Playwright’s own failed first marriage to Theresa O’Neill, The Last Five Years is a two-person musical which tells the history of a relationship of two young and ambitious New Yorkers from two different perspectives. Jason Robert Brown, Jonathan O’Boyle, Molly Lynch, Oli Higginson, Southwark Playhouse, The Last Five Years. Covering everything from new writing at the grassroots of the industry to the latest red-carpet openings in the West End and on Broadway, the Musical Theatre Review spotlight falls on all aspects of professional musical theatre. With a beautiful, witty and emotionally powerful score that will hook you from the first note, this new production features the incomparable talents of Elise McCann (Matilda The Musical) as Cathy and Christian Charisiou (Cry Baby) as Jamie, under the direction of Elsie Edgerton-Till (The Plant) and musical direction by Daryl Wallis (Strange Bedfellows). The glowing love and yawning wasteland between the two hearts becomes an intricate emotional militarised zone, cross-hatched by the shadows of the other party's feelings. Jason has earned acclaim as a director, arranger, pianist, conductor and educator. Can there be a bigger gulf in the world of musical theatre than seeing Saturday Night Fever and The Last Five Years on … It’s a recipe for domestic tension and so it proves, he’s keen to network at publishing parties and she needs more domestic commitment. Jamie, a writer, starts at the beginning of the story and progresses through marriage, infidelity, and divorce, while Cathy, an actor, begins at the end of the relationship and ends with the couple’s first date; the two actors’ only direct interaction takes place midpoint, during the wedding sequence. Although the show was originally scored for sextet, this was, alas, another Sydney incarnation with just piano accompanist (musical director Daryl Wallis). He is also a playwright, author, poet, librettist, drummer and winner of the 2017 Walkley Arts Journalism Award, The Last Five Years review: Like two lovers passing each other on trains. Now 18 years old (and in its third Sydney season) Jason Robert Brown's 90-minute two-hander about a five-year relationship was so candidly autobiographical that he had to rewrite one of the songs to diffuse legal proceedings by his ex-wife. It's a show of such fascination as repays repeated scrutiny, and were McCann's singing able to match the consistency of Charisiou's​, it would be exceptional. Information and Bookings: www.ensemble.com.au, Image: Elise McCann and Christian Charisiou star in The Last Five Years (supplied), Australian Arts Review (AAR) features the best of Australia's performing and visual arts sector. While Jamie is cutting out a career as a successful author, Cathy is standing in an audition line, number 242 on her dress and 241 thinner and younger women ahead of her in the queue. The couple’s passionate romance is chronicled from both perspectives: Jamie with all the optimism of young love, looking to the future; Cathy with the hurt and disappointment of its end. Sign up to receive news and updates from Musical Theatre Review. It’s all quite emotionally exhausting but ultimately a very rewarding watch. Christian Charisiou and Elise McCann only sing with and to each other at their wedding.Credit:Phil Erbacher. Published by Musical Theatre Review, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK. Future projects include a musical of Farewell My Concubine and a new show with Billy Crystal and Amanda Green. When softly singing introverted sentiments, or when being comical (depicting an audition), she's captivating, but when she really sings out to express bigger or rawer emotions the timbre of her voice becomes too brittle and shrill. Filing out at the end, your eyes can’t help but be drawn to the couple’s ring, abandoned on the piano among the scattered petals. Love’s young dream doesn’t last long here, the story of the creative couple’s relationship being effectively told back to front, inside out and with all its highs and lows and ultimate failure. ISSN 2632-4318. THE LAST FIVE YEARS Ensemble Theatre, April 3 ★★★½. If ever proof was needed that the path of true love does indeed never run smooth, here it is, laid bare in this emotional and innovative rollercoaster of a musical. As it is it's still very good. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. “The Last Five Years is an enchanting musical that captures some of the most poignant and uplifting moments in a modern romance,” said Edgerton-Till. to "Go!" Jason Robert Brown’s acclaimed 2001 musical, The Last Five Years returns to the Sydney stage in a new production at the Ensemble Theatre for a strictly limited season from 29 March 2019. Jason Robert Brown’s 2001 song cycle of love won and lost is a precocious early-career project fiendishly difficult to perform (and revered by musical theatre heads as a result). As a singer-songwriter, his albums include Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes, Jason Robert Brown Live in Concert and last year’s How We React And How We Recover. © 2013 - 2020 ABN: 14 580 855 683. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. Five years then and an awful lot more tears, this is an almost flawless musical dissection of the mutual destruction and devotion of a doomed relationship by two highly impressive performers. with a credible level of emotional complexity. A film adaptation of The Last Five Years starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan was released in February 2015. THE LAST FIVE YEARS Ensemble Theatre, April 3 ★★★½. Director: Elsie Edgerton-Till Featuring: Christian Charisiou, Elise McCann Musical Direction: Daryl Wallis Choreography: Daniella Lacob Set Designer: Michael Scott-Mitchell Lighting Designer: Karen Norris Costume Designer: Genevieve Graham Costume Supervisor: Hannah Lobelson Stage Manager: Lauren Tulloh Assistant Stage Manager: Alira McKenzie-Williams Sound Operator: Jessica Legg, The Last Five Years They are flawed, raging, caring, funny people, who sing songs in which the lyrics flare with ingenious rhymes, while the music is wildly diverse, innovative, edgy and sometimes delicately beautiful. The story of the musical represented O’Neill’s relationship with Brown so closely that she threatened legal action. Jason Robert Brown’s musical, here directed by Jonathan O’Boyle, has found its perfect home with the Southwark Playhouse, the intimate seating arrangement contributing to the atmosphere, which at times is electric. Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall Street, Kirribilli Jason Robert Brown is the Tony Award-winning composer, lyricist, and orchestrator for his groundbreaking work that includes Songs for a New World, Parade, The Last Five Years, 13, The Bridges of Madison County and Honeymoon in Vegas.

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