A Beautiful Goodbye : "Fall in love with a story that will break your heart"
I heard about this play around the end of June and I bought a ticket to see the show without even reading the synopsis. I wanted to see it because the poster caught my attention and it got me curious. Since July, I was already looking forward to watching it. Last Friday, I finally had a time to read about the background of the musical play. And it made me even more excited! I was expecting a lot on the story and I was looking forward to how will it be interpreted.
The Last Five Years is a musical written by Jason Robert Brown in 2002. The Philippine version was produced by 9 Works Theatrical and it was directed by Robbie Guevara. It stars Joaquin Valdes as Jamie Wellerstein and Nikki Gil as Cathy Hiatt.
The story is about is about two people - Jamie and Cathy. Jamie is an aspiring writer while Cathy is a striving theater actress. The story starts with a mature Cathy grieving for her broken marriage, then a young Jamie comes out feeling giddy and ecstatic about meeting Cathy for the first time. Cathy's part was told in reverse chronological order (end of marriage to first date) and Jamie's part was presented in chronological order (first date to end of marriage). It was a very smart and creative way to tell a cliche story of a couple, from the first meeting to the end of their marriage. There were no lines, just songs that narrate the flow of the story.
The two characters don't interact with each other until their timeline overlaps during their engagement - wedding scene. What I like most was how the actors were able to give so much emotion and power to their character, without interacting with each other - the only representation of the other character was a spotlight which I like because it made me appreciate the actors more. How hard could it be to sing with overflowing feelings to an empty spotlight in front of you? How hard could it be to look crazy in love or angry while looking at what was supposed to be your lover's eyes?
After the overlap, the story progresses from Cathy being young again, from auditioning for different theater plays (funniest scene) to asking Jamie to move-in with her.
And an older Jamie, from becoming a successful and popular writer to sleeping with his publisher. The story ended with Cathy saying goodbye to Jamie on their first day, looking forward to tomorrow, simultaneously, Jaimie says goodbye to Cathy - Five years difference of a goodbye that leads to a new beginning and goodbye of an ending. I like the story and how it was presented - it makes the audience, not lose their attention and focus on the story. The set was simple, 4 wooden borders that looks like a frame, a few wooden chairs, a small table and a bed. At some point, the bed was rotated by the characters after their scenes which for me could have symbolized the passing of time and years. I also like how their individual style that also symbolizes the time, you can easily identify how mature or how young they were, Nikki Gil from a mature, up-do woman to later on, a young striving theater actress and Joaquin from an easy-going guy to suit-up successful writer / author. Another plus point was the live accompaniment of music through various live instruments, but my favorite was the violin and cello. Nikki and Joaquin were able to deliver their songs very clearly and with passion, though they could have made their actions bigger and mas-OA since they were the only characters in the story and most of the time, they are alone on the stage. Overall, I like the timeline sequence and flow of the story, Nikki and Joaquin did well in representing their characters. It was a heartbreaking love story, but curiously enough, I read in Wikipedia that the Last Five Years story was inspired by Brown's own fail marriage with his ex-wife. The ex-wife threatened legal action so Brown had to rewrite / revise a scene to reduce similarities. It is really true that the most heartbreaking and painful moments we have could turn into something creative though we don't need to find pain and sorrow to create, happiness, joy, anger, sadness, excitement can inspire us to do something creative in our own way. On my next musical play list: Disney's BEAUTY and the BEAST in CPP on January! See you! xoxo, MI think we both can see what could be better
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She wonders and wandersMonica writes about her life, what she eats, what she reads and where she goes. This space is where her thoughts, experiences, memories and feelings turn into words. She's glad that she can share with you. Archives
August 2021
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