The Last Five Years

February 13, 2015,  Sh-K-Boom,  94 minutes

Here's a rarity: a chamber musical that works as well, if not better, expanded on screen. A singular work of creative catharsis by Jason Robert Brown, the musical--a follow up to his Tony winning Parade; all composed by the age of 28--was essentially a form of artistic therapy processing his failed first marriage to an Irish Catholic woman. Lawsuits resulted on both ends, but ultimately were resolved with story and character details changed for sake of privacy. One change was to make Jason--er, Jamie--a wunderkind novelist; a choice that seems counter-intuitive given that virtually the entire show/film is thru-sung, and would seem better suited to the province of a composer over a writer. I suspect greater changes were made to accommodate Theresa O'Neill, the object of Brown's romance, here renamed Cathy, an actress often cast in summer stock musicals. Inability to advance her career in NY to match anything close to Jamie's rising star is at core the poison that destructs their relationship. As one suspects it did in real life.

My familiarity with the original stage show is confined to the CD--which is helped no small measure by its two stars, Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott (two-name stars need not apply). The show played Off-Bway for ten weeks in the spring of 2002. Not exactly the smash hit begging for screen translation. Nonetheless, buoyed by Brown's rising star, tuneful score, and minimal staging requirements, a decent life in regional venues over the next dozen years gave validation to a film version. Norbert & Sherie, already alumni from Rent (as Bway replacments) would shine 3 years later as tricksters in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (for which Butz would win a Tony--and Scott, along with John Lithgow & Joanna Gleason would get nominated). I sincerely hope they enjoy each other's company offstage as much as they convey on. And so, on disc for Last 5, the duo alternate bravura performance bits by Jason Brown; no 16 or 32 measure songs, when 64 or 128 will do better. It's often just showing off, but then that's just right for both the characters and the composer who had already impressed the cognoscenti in his Bway debut. To emphasize the idea that there are always two sides to every story/marriage, the alternating segments told by him & her are also set in opposite directions. Thus we start with Cathy at the very end and work backwards to her joyful beginning, while Jamie arrives in first flush and works forward to his final straw. None of this chronology is expressly stated (at least not on film), leaving one having to figure it out with visual clues more than the lyrics. The mid-point, where both visions and emotions match in time, is their wedding day. The structure of the movie virtually requires two viewings to absorb.  It's a gimmick, yes--but lifts the story into an interesting dimension.

It's rather daring to start the show with a song so glum as Cathy "Still Hurting," (tho it undoubtedly reflects the emotion of the moment, it could send the impatient running for the exits); but that quickly brightens up with Jamie's over-the-moon salsa-inflected "Shiksa Goddess" (among the lyric charms is a list of Jewish schoogirl crushes past--here briefly shown as if assembled on an Off-Bway stage). "See, I'm Smiling" is Cathy on verge of cracking, slapped against Jamie's joyous infatuation, "Moving Too Fast," which illustrates his literary rise as well. Fine as these compositions are, my ear isn't quite turned until "A Part of That," Cathy's process of navigating the growing chasm between Jamie's success and their marriage; so beautifully expressed in Brown's melodic felicity, told in more story illustration. "The Schmuel Song" demonstrates Jamie's narrative salesmanship, pulling Cathy from her doldrums--a bit overdone for my taste. But "A Summer in Ohio" brims with a simmering giddiness--Cathy suffering thru regional summer stock, waiting for her beau to join her. Their time-lines connect for "The Next Ten Minutes"--their engagement and wedding, and from there Cathy gains energy in her youthful ambition ("Climbing Uphill" and "I Can Do Better Than That") as Jamie struggles with the perks of fame & success ("A Miracle Would Happen"and "Nobody Needs to Know"). And tho it ends as it begins on a sad note, I suppose the sweetest thing about the musical is that it shows the two really did love each other. Who says love lasts forever, anyway?

Reaching the screen over a dozen years past its stage debut, justifiably ruled out original couple, Scott & Butz. In their place are Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, neither of whom in any way resemble their prede-cessors, which is not to say they are wrong. Jordan has American Idol cuteness, but not much Jewishness about him--she has more. With her chipmunk smile, Kendrick is perhaps more appealing here than in ...to the Woods. I've no doubt the pairing pleases many a fan but fine as they are, neither is particularly exciting to me. And yet they do well enuf to define the project for recorded history. Tho the script is still a two-hander, dozens of other faces light up their world, including cameos from Sherie Rene & Jason Robert--as a rehearsal pianist.

As a highly independent film, I suspect that much of the muscle came from screenwriter and director Richard LaGravenese--whose mark must be all over this. Tho he's had a decent up & down Hlwd career (The Fisher King; Bridges of Madison County, Beloved) I was much taken with his very first produced script, Rude Awakening--a much underrated comedy in which the upscale 80s collided with the ragtag 60s. This debut was during my own Hlwd days--an encouraging sign of industry acceptance of the sort of quirky comedy I was then spinning. So, LaGravenese was fine by me. And here, working essentially with all JRBrown's material, there's writing only in the sense of illustrating the material--which he seems to have addressed with loving care. It's a lovely film, shot in three weeks in all NY locations, with, surely, no expectations of financial profits. But in a world now so saturated in films pouring from an ever expanding (infinite?) universe of studios, networks and platforms. The future is to be drowning in an ocean of recorded past.  To call it a vanity project is beyond the point. For those who like this sort of thing, it's a lovely bit of dessert.

The film's release was just weeks after the Bway opening of a new musical by Jason Robert Brown; Honeymoon in Vegas, on the heels of yet another, The Bridges of Madison County just 11 months prior. On paper, highly appealing, commercial prospects both, yet neither managed a run more than several months. Nor an afterlife anywhere close to The Last 5 Years. But their failures cannot be attributed to Brown's scores. Tellingly, they both concern romantic relationships. Honeymoon opens with our everyman hero chirping "I Love Betsy" with site-specific lyrics that could equally come from the mouth of Jamie (and might well have been a discarded version of "Shiksha Goddess.") He likes "taxis, trains, Brooklyn when it rains/dancing on the pier/ Broadway (once a year)." I love how those parentheses are written in the lyrics, and how you can hear it in Rob McClure's voice on the OCR. There's still a bit of self-shaming on loving Bway, even from the creators who perpetrate it for (presumably) an audience that enjoys it. But even good shows now sputter, while lazy, inferior and uninspired mediocrities gain traction for decades-long runs. If Bway isn't cool, it's certainly big business these days, bringing in shows by such crossover talents as Sting (The Last Ship), Tupac Shakur (Holler If Ya Hear Me), Carole King (Beautiful) Gloria & Emilio Estefan (On Your Feet); competing with Bway stalwarts Alan Menken (Aladdin), Ahrens & Flaherty (Rocky--yes, that Rocky), Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), Tom Kitt (If/Then) and a double dose of Alan Jay Lerner film-to-stage transcriptions (An American in Paris, Gigi) and the very last Kander & Ebb opus, The Visit--which even with Chita Rivera was too grim for Bway consumption. But no one knows anymore (if they ever did) what's going to work and/or take the public's fancy. And Brown's two quick failures (despite his winning a Tony for Bridges), would find his Bway output dormant for at least...ahem...the next five years. 

The main course for me that year was a return to the Southern Hempishere after my initiation 3 years before on the 2nd Playbill cruise, which proved to be the lure needed to bring me to Uruguay--a country long held in the recesses of my mind from a house featured in an early '80s Architectual Digest that looked as if were built by Dr. Seuss. In the end, this country would be prove to be my touchstone: home by any other name--tho not one I'd inhabit (aside from in my imagination) more than mere days. A diamond shaped country the size of Missouri, tucked underneath Brazil & Argentina along the Atlantic coast, Uruguay is the South American Riviera. And all the more attractive for being so generally under the radar--particulary here in America. You don't hear of Americans going to Punta del Este or Montevideo. They come from Spain and Italy and Argentina. And tho my Spanish is far too negligent, nothing could disturb my whole-hearted embrace of this jewel--which I've indulged twice in the last five years.

Report Card:  The Last Five Years

Overall Film:  B

Stage Fidelity:  A-

Songs from Off-Bway:  16

Songs Cut from Off-Bway:  O

Additional Songs:  None

Standout Numbers: "A Summer in Ohio"

Casting:  Credible, if unexciting

Cast from Off-Bway:  Sherie Rene Scott

            (in cameo)

Direction:  Visual, expansive to the material

Choreography: Minimal, but creative

Scenic Design: NY locations

Costumes:  Old Navy

Titles:  Post film, unremarkable

Oscar noms:  None

Next: Beauty & the Beast