Yay… there’s a musical in town that’s a must-see.

But it’s not the highly-promoted 9 to 5 QPAC show. Instead, make tracks to La Boite Theatre and catch The Last Five Years while you can.

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years has been a popular show since its earliest performances (2001) and off-Broadway success (2002). But it was new to me.

The Last Five Years relates the story of two 20-something New Yorkers, who fall in and out of love over the course of five years.

Darren Yap (Director) describes The Last Five Years as a ‘complex song cycle.’

‘Complex’ because the husband retells the story in chronological order, while the wife shares her memories in reverse.

And a ‘song cycle’ because the show is sung-through (that is, there is hardly any spoken dialogue), which means that the two performers need to be able to sustain the show across the full 90 minutes.

Danielle Remulta (Cathy) and Robert Tripolino (Jamie) are well-cast.

Great vocal work, with a real sense of a passionate love affair that didn’t translate into a long marriage and insights as to how both characters felt about their parting.

Tripolino gives a standout performance: wonderful vocal range, great enunciation and perfectly able to convey the breadth of emotions, from the impetuous falling in love to the sadness that the relationship was over.

Remulta has a lovely voice and really conveyed the frustrations of being a wannabe performer (a great ‘A Summer in Ohio’) but I would have liked a better sound balance for some of the big notes (my ears were ringing a little when I left) and in a show where the story is sung, it’s important that the audience can hear every word.

I loved the staging. Darren Yap and Chloe Greaves (Set & Costume Designer) used the La Boite Roundhouse space to full effect, as the actors entered and/or left through the aisles and across the three levels of the set.

The score is wonderful (Jason Robert Brown, writer and composer), and the musicians were excellent.

Placing the instrumentalists on stage (again, across three levels) created a sense of a busy New York skyline, as well as making the musicians part of the action.

Hats off to James Dobinson (Music Director and piano), Annie Silva (Violin), David Freisberg (Cello), Dr. Danielle Bentley (Cello), Joel Woods (Guitar) and Patrick Farrell (Bass Guitar); to pull off such a memorable performance when seated in three different spaces onstage is to be applauded.

There is a but. Having decided not to read anything about the show until after the performance, I completely missed the ‘he said/she said’ forwards/backwards telling of the story (his in chronological order and hers in reverse).

Which meant that there were moments when I wondered if Remulta was playing the former wife and the new lover.

Perhaps a clearer use of the space (his space/her space?), of a clock (going forward and then backwards?), or even the design of the set itself might have helped. But if you are reading this before you go to the show, or read the program notes while waiting to go in, then you won’t have the same occasional confusion.

But (!) this does not stop me from wholeheartedly recommending this show. Go for the music, for the performances (in particular to see Robert Tripolino), and for the staging and design; and enjoy the conversations afterwards about the ‘he said/she said’ story.

Great show, great musicians, great staging, and a great evening out.

This was a great adaptation of the award-winning musical The Last Five Years by La Boite Theatre directed by Darren Yap.

Jamie, played by Robert Tripolino, is an aspiring Jewish writer with boundless New York energy and hang-ups and Cathy, played by Danielle Remulta, is an out-of-towner actress, competing for parts with girls with bigger belts and bigger boobs.

He makes it in the Big Apple, caught in the whirligig of publishers’ parties and prodigious reviews while she ends up back in Ohio in provincial theatre, her confidence shaken and knocked once too often.

Cathy’s six songs tell her tale from the break-up to the hook-up, while Jamie’s songs tell his side of the story the other way, with a couple of duets when they meet in the middle and a bittersweet number to close.

The actors are as strong as ever as is needed with only two singers centre stage for 90 minutes, their sublime voices complemented by a small ensemble of outstanding musicians.

I would recommend researching the plot before seeing the show as friends we were with found the complicated chronology quite confusing, even though they loved it.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed this production exploring the rough terrain of a disintegrating relationship.

A compelling story about a young couple and their joy of finding each other, getting married and then their despair as they drift apart.

A musical experience that presents each character’s version of how things unfold.

A great performance by newcomer Danielle Remulta and, I must say, a standout performance by Robert Tripolino.

The audience is taken on their journey and feels their pleasure and pain through each turning point of their lives.

The only negatives were:
– at times the musicians were louder than Danielle and it made it hard to hear her lines.
– I understand the play originated in New York but an Australian adaption (accent) would have made some of the lines easier to understand.

This was a play I wanted to see and I enjoyed it.

Get along and support this young talent.

The La Boite Theatre team with director Darren Yap put on a fabulous production of the Tony Award-winning musical ‘The Last Five Years’ telling the story of a young couple yearning for artistic success, the effect when it comes and the way it can unbalance and corrode relationships.

This girl-meets-boy musical is about actor Cathy (Danielle Remulta) and would-be writer Jamie (Robert Tripolino) who fall in love and get married, but the relationship takes a tumble when he becomes a feted novelist almost overnight and she fails to achieve the stardom or even professional fulfilment she yearns for despite years of struggle.

We watch on as Jamie takes us through their story from the beginning, forwards and Cathy from the end, backwards.

Each actor delivers a beguiling vocal performance, with highlights including Cathy’s ‘Still Hurting‘ and Jamie’s  ‘The Schmuel Song.’

They are great vocalists on their own but really shone when singing together, capturing their ill-fated love story exquisitely.

The simple staging, whilst minimal, was very effective for the delivery of each romantic anecdote scene transition with only a few very accomplished musicians placed on three levels.

One scene flowed seamlessly into another.

The musicians and cast members worked together in beautiful harmony to embody an emotive story which I would recommend to all.