THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Where: Roxy Theatre, 2657 Quadra St.
When: Wednesday, Aug. 2 through Sunday, Aug. 13
Tickets: $20.75-$42 ($15 for students) from bluebridgetheatre.ca
The Last Five Years is the tale of a couple told over a five-year period, during which the man and woman fall in love, marry and eventually divorce.
Thanks to its time-flipping premise, the musical by three-time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown offers two very different interpretations of the same relationship.
“She recounts the memories of the relationship backwards from the end to the beginning, and he tells the story in the other direction, from the beginning to the end,” said director Julie McIsaac. “It covers a lot of ground. So I think that might be one of the reasons that it feels large, even though it’s just the two performers on stage.”
McIsaac, who moved from Vancouver to Victoria during the pandemic, couldn’t have chosen meatier text with which to mark her Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre debut. Early drafts of The Last Five Years were said to be autobiographical, with the central idea based on Brown’s own marriage. Following a lawsuit, filed by his ex-wife, alterations were made to make the story a non-specific one before making its 2001 debut.
“When you describe the plot, the dramatic scenes are intimate in a way which lends itself to more of a naturalistic spoken play,” McIsaac said.
“The emotional journey and the dramatic arc that they both go on throughout the show is really thrilling. “[Brown] really honours the fact that there’s two sides to every story, and the facts probably lay somewhere in between. I think it’s very true to the human experience.”
Toronto’s Seth Zosky plays Jamie, a novelist whose most recent book has become a big hit. Victoria’s Cheyenne Scott stars as Cathy, a struggling actor who lives in her partner’s shadow.
A full band supports the actors, with musical numbers taking centre stage throughout the production. That isn’t a surprise: Brown won Tony Awards and Drama Desk trophies for his musical contributions to Broadway hits Parade (1998) and The Bridges of Madison County (2014). But what is remarkable about The Last Five Years is its emotional impact, which is unusually large for a two-person musical, McIsaac said.
“Even though it’s a small show, in the sense that it only has two performers, it’s a huge show because you have two performers handling an entire musical, which is such a big ask. There’s a grandeur to it because of the way the piece plays with time.”
In the original play, which drew an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for outstanding Off-Broadway musical, the couple sings together only once, in the middle of the play, on their wedding day. The Ontario-born McIsaac, who studied at Victoria’s Canadian College of Performing Arts, worked with musical director Heather Burns to adjust that concept and deepen the performances.
“My understanding of the original production is that the two performers rarely shared the stage,” McIsaac said. “We’ve created this world where the two characters, some months after their separation, they find themselves at the wedding of a mutual friend. And late that evening, they have the opportunity to have a conversation that unpacks their relationship.”
The Last Five Years has developed a cult following in theatre circles, but is rarely performed in Western Canada. Its arrival at the Roxy Theatre is indicative of recent Blue Bridge programming. Productions by David Mamet, William Goldman, Molière, and Marie Jones are part of the company’s 2023-24 season.
Blue Bridge has been taking chances, McIsaac said, which is never a bad thing. “I think it’s exciting for the community to be able to see a musical that not a lot of people have seen and to come see performers that they haven’t necessarily seen before.“
