Katie Travers and David De Almo in DSC's 'The Last Five Years'
Where Do You See Yourself?
"It was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor"
- David Bowie - 'Five Years'
Rob Sheffield's wickedly funny collection of autobiographical essays, "Talking With Girls About Duran Duran" contains a pointed reference to the significance of the five-year period in our lives. For an adult, we can "do five years standing on our head", but for the child (and on through the early twenties), five years is a lifetime. Five years is a neat chunk of time in which to define periods of life. The five years surrounding high school (where either of the bookend years is spent preparing for or recovering from that epic forty-eight months) are perhaps the most easily defined, but five years of *anything* is an accepted milestone. It's the age that most parents and society have decided a kid better have mastered all the major skills like walking, talking and toilet training or else. It's the stretch that potential employers ask you to envision during that job interview. "Five Years Later..." is the tagline to any news segment featuring that special look back on any given national tragedy. Five years is long enough to be able to step back and reflect on what has been accomplished...or what has been destroyed.
Jason Robert Brown's 'The Last Five Years' traces the relationship arc of Jamie and Cathy, two young artists struggling to find a niche in their respective crafts, from a period of courtship through marriage and the resultant separation. It's not what happens in the relationship that makes the story compelling - in fact, on its face the plot is linear and uninteresting. What makes 'The Last Five Years' so moving and affecting is the reverse chronology of both characters. Before Benjamin Button, there was Jamie and Cathy, doomed to meet in the middle and wave longingly at each other as they speed toward their respective beginning and ending. Director Kevin Broccoli has simply but deftly staged this bittersweet Soap Operetta at the Warwick Museum of Art, bringing a fresh and ultimately satisfying offering to a crowded RI Theater scene.
Stay tuned for the rest of the More Teeth review of DSC Productions 'The Last Five Years' - Coming Soon!
DSC Productions presents Jason Robert Brown's 'The Last 5 Years', a tale of a relationship from two points of view directed by Kevin Broccoli, Fri-Sat Feb. 11-19, at The Warwick Museum of Art, 3259 Post Road, Warwick. Info: 368-7689.
