Theater Review: Time Is a Character in The Last Five Years

(SPOT.ph) Love and heartbreak take center stage in the captivating musical The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. The Barefoot Theater Collaborative production opened on September 29 with an extended run until October 29 at the Power Mac Center Spotlight, Circuit Makati.

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Synopsis of The Last Five Years

The Last Five Years follows the journey of Cathy and Jamie, portrayed by real-life married couple Gab Pangilinan and Myke Salomon, as they navigate the ups and downs of....well, the last five years of their relationship. What sets this musical apart is its innovative storytelling technique. Cathy tells their love story in reverse chronological order, starting from the end of their relationship, while Jamie experiences it linearly, beginning from the blissful start. Their narratives intersect only once, during their wedding, before continuing on their separate timelines.

Theater Review of The Last Five Years

When news broke in October that Barefoot Theater Collaborative is staging The Last Five Years, I was excited to see how it would fare with the theater-goers of this generation. And, more importantly, how it would innovate and be unique from—one, the 2014 9 Works Theatrical production starring Nikki Gil and Joaquin Valdes; and the American movie musical adaptation starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. I'm also at a different point in my life, and was looking forward to how I would personally respond to it as part of the audience.

Production

The Topper Fabregas-directed production stands on its own with a unique set design by Joey Mendoza. A moving platform that slides across the stage, symbolizing the characters' shifting timelines, further enhances Brown's discursive reordering of sequences through. The traverse stage, in addition, mimics the plot's dual timeline: as Jamie and Cathy have two separate perspectives, audience members also get physically different POVs.

In some scenes, the sliding platform physically cues the timeline of the two characters, especially when it is moved to the center during the intersection of the stories: the wedding. This symbolism is amiss, however, in some scenes where the platform arbitrarily moves from one side to another—really a minor note in the grand scheme of things. 

Performance

Gab Pangilinan as Cathy shines in The Last Five Years, sometimes outshining her stage husband and real-life spouse Myke Salomon as Jamie.

Pangilinan's singing and body language capture her character's complex emotions without faltering—which is probably not easy as her story is told in reverse. Her vocals bring depth and authenticity to Cathy's songs, captivating the audience with her emotional range. She starts with hope and ends with heartbreak: dealing with the betrayal of her very own husband, going through rejection after rejection as an artist, getting married to the love of her life, and falling in love. Only an actress of her caliber can sustain this seemingly disorienting turn of events.

Salomon, on the other hand, is eclipsed by Pangilinan's gravitas. While they have chemistry onstage—they've done Mula sa Buwan together, after all, his rendition of Jamie lacks the complexity and nuance that should have somehow given tension to his character. In the end, Jamie is just like any other guy who cheats on his wife. Not saying, of course, that there could be a justification for betrayal.

Music and Lyrics

It's undeniable that time is a character in itself in Brown's musical. His plot (sjuzhet)—the non-chronological presentation of events—causes an estranging effect vis-a-vis the story (fabula) that mirrors the reality of the relationship. Had it been told in the usual narrative of a romance: they meet, they get married, they break up—the tragic love story in The Last Five Years probably would not have the same magnitude.

This technique is signaled as soon as the first few lines of the first song start. In "Still Hurting," Cathy sings:

"Jamie is over and Jamie is gone
Jamie's decided it's time to move on
Jamie has new dreams he's building upon
And I'm still hurting."

Starting with "over" cues the start of the end, while the reversal of time is further shown in the order of "gone," "move on", and "new dreams"—the latter often associated with beginnings. 

Almost a decade after I first saw The Last Five Years, did this production meet my expectations? It did. And now that I watched it with a "more stable" view—only a very little bit—about relationships, the unconventional structure, powerful performances, and poignant storytelling of this Jason Robert Brown are all the more crystal clear reasons to catch it. 

The Last Five Years runs until October 29 at Power Mac Center Spotlight, Circuit Makati, Makati City. Tickets, which are priced from P2,700 to P3,200, are available through Ticket2Me.

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