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The Last Five Years (Reading Rep Theatre, The Barn Theatre & Theatre Royal Bath Revival) - ★★★★★ REVIEW
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- [00:00]
Marc Maron
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Mickey Jo
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- [02:03]
Mickey Jo
I have been waiting for a production. I have been praying for a production. And I think that I could be in love with a production of the last five years like this. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media and this evening, this very evening, hopefully the same evening that you are seeing or hearing this for the very first time, I went to go and see a brand new production of Jason Robert Brown's iconic early 2000s contemporary musical theatre song cycle narrative musical the Last Five Years at Reading Rep Theatre in Reading, the United Kingdom. This is a co production in association with the Barn Theatre in Cirencester and Theatre Royal Bath, two other venues where this production will go on to play after it concludes its limited run in Reading and it stars Martha Kirby and Guy Wolfe in the iconic roles of Kathy Hyatt and Jamie Wellerstein, a couple whose five year love story is told in two different directions simultaneously. We meet Jamie at the beginning of their relationship and we experience his version of it in the usual forwards direction while Kathy's story is told in reverse. This is now among the shows I have seen the most different productions of and the most different interpretations of, with various different versions in different countries, in different scales of theatrical production, doing different things and trying to different ways to explain this storytelling concept to an audience. The burden of narrative storytelling here being a particularly important one because that concept is not explained within the context of the material, it is almost entirely sung through and you have to infer that the relationship is being told simultaneously in two different directions in two opposing timelines via the emotional context of the songs. This is the fourth different professional production that I have seen of the last five years and not too long ago I saw saw its long anticipated Broadway arrival. I am still wearing the merchandise and I am still simmering with just a little bit of a resentment because if you saw that review or listened to it, you will know that I hated that production with every fibre of my being. So imagine my surprise when this evening I saw what just might be the best production of the last five years I have ever seen. I'm going to let you know all about this production why it delighted and thrilled and surprised me so much. There is going to be a spoiler free section as well as a spoiler inclusive section for those of you who aren't going to get a chance to go and see it, but want to hear more of the details to enjoy it vicariously. And of course we are also going to talk about those two central performances. Now this is very early in the show's run and I would be amazed if there are that many of you in the comments section who have had the chance to see this production yet. But if you have, then feel free to share your own thoughts about it in the comments section down below. And as always, if you enjoy listening to this review and you want to hear what I have to say about other upcoming theatrical productions, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel and turn on notifications so you don't miss any upcoming reviews or go follow me me on podcast platforms. Now for fear of moving too fast, let's begin this review of the last five years. So to recap just a little bit, this was an early 2000s song cycle written by Jason Robert Brown that allegedly may be loosely based on the composer's first marriage. Many of the songs within the show have become particularly iconic within the contemporary musical theatre canon, have become staples of audition, rep and cabaret performances, largely because they are not only musically complex and interesting and challenging and show off impressive vocal talents and vocal range, but also because they provide a fantastic outlet for really gritty acting through song. These are musicalized monologues, after all. These characters don't really speak that much. They are mostly singing their emotions one after the other throughout the show. So they need to do a lot of great acting through song. Now this show originally premiered Off Broadway in a production starring Sherry Renee Scott and Norbert Leo Butts, with a fairly simple, simple premise in terms of its direction and in the years that have followed it has been produced a lot and conceived in various different ways. There was an Off Broadway revival that was quite a high profile one, directed by the composer himself. It has also been produced at just about every off West End theatre in London, including a production at Southwark Playhouse not too many years ago, which was actor, musician. So you had Jamie and Kathy accompanying each other on stage and playing instruments, playing the piano, playing the ukulele. There was also a revolve. There is often a sense of a sort of cyclical staging in the last five years with the turning of time, with us moving, rotating around between his timeline and hers, suggesting visually to the audience what's going on, because again, we can't really stop and tell them, by the way, we've moved backwards in time. Now we have to try and explain that through different storytelling methods, which is why you see the Last five Years done in so many different ways. You see these different directors and designers trying to figure out how to communicate that idea to to an audience who may be experiencing this material for the first time. Not every production uses rotation and clock imagery and revolves. However, the very first time that I saw the Last Five Years at a theatre then called the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick, I think it might have changed its name and then reverted it again, it was a production that had Jamie and Cathy relegated to two separated sides of the stage with a division down the middle and mirrors on the outer edges. Often if the last five years isn't using revolves, it's using mirrors. And if you have any curiosity about the student production that I did, we had entirely different stages for Jamie and Kathy connected via bridge. But then that was also a student production that added an interval and in which it was suggested to us that we should spend that interval in character, greeting the audience in the foyer as though they were guests at our wedding. To which I responded, that's a fantastic idea that I will absolutely not be doing. Anyway, years of productions of the last five years eventually bring us to its long awaited Broadway premiere. It took a long time to arrive on Broadway, not because the show wasn't popular and didn't have an audience, but because for the longest time it just wasn't produced there. It wasn't necessarily a show that made sense for a large scale production in a Broadway house. There was a question of whether it would lose some of its intimacy, and perhaps it did, along with a handful of other issues that I detailed at length in my slightly frustrated review of that particular mounting of the show. And it's in the shadow of that frustration and we'll call it rage, that I am now telling you about this one, because by this point any tolerance that I had for the last five years done badly, had been really depleted and I needed this to be good. I needed this to be good like I have needed few things in life. So I was absolutely thrilled to be greeted by this really tremendously exciting production directed by Hal Chambers, which I will tell you, sort of felt like experiencing the show again with fresh eyes. And I know this material very well. I have seen this done multiple times. And yes, I felt as though I was meeting a couple I hadn't met before. It was a very well matched Jamie and Kathy, which is also, in my experience, something of a rarity. I encounter so many productions of this show in which there is a imbalance in the likability or the talent of the performers involved. And it doesn't feel like an even depiction of this relationship. But this evening it really worked, largely due to subtle shifts in the characterization that made this Jamie and this Kathy work on a level that I don't think I've seen before. I'll tell you more about it when we talk about their performances in just a moment. But to give you a sense of what this was, it wasn't a concept production, but one that sort of reverted to some of the most fundamental and charming ideas of musical storytelling and reading. Rep is a very intimate black box theatre, which serves the show well, with a small, three walled sort of IKEA showroom, familiar set having been put up in its place, flying space designed by set and costume designer Ethan Cheek, and a small plinth stage in the center of that, around which there were a couple of set pieces and these lit windows that gave the whole thing a sort of forensic quality, as well as a sense of what I perceived as a sort of haunting intensity too. The innermost plinth stage also created the idea of perhaps an art exhibition, especially when the two of them were standing atop it, as they did at the very beginning of the show, as we heard the little plinky, plunky bling blink. And it suggested this relationship as something to be studied for the ensuing 90 minutes, which is really what the show is. Now, here's where it gets more interesting, because there are four musicians in the playing space around the little moat surrounding the plinth, if you like, two of them on the left hand side, two of them on the right, with an even divide in the gender expression of these musicians. They were Eli Le, Kirk Hughes on piano, Rebecca Demmer on cello, Wills Mercado on guitar, and Angus Teeker on bass guitar. And the way that they were costumed sort have established them to my mind as not only existing characters within the space, and we will get to that in just a moment, but also echoes of Jamie and Kathy themselves. And that I thought was interesting and novel enough. But what I and the rest of the audience would come to find out is that the band are heavily involved in this production, this beginning with just a little bit of light choreography. There is a moment in the opening number still hurting, when they all stand together in a moment of passion before all sitting back down together simultaneously, which was very simple, yet very powerful. But wait, there is more. Oh, how there is more. Gradually, these musicians get brought more and more into the story. One of the guitarists is in passing a character that Jamie acknowledges and sort of makes conversation with, though he does not reply. In another moment, they become the team working in the summer stock theater with Kathy before she sings A Summer in Ohio, and she acknowledges them as she moves playfully around the space. Then they perform a kick line that might be something of a spoiler, but I was just too excited to tell you. I will expand further on the many creative ways in which the band become participatory in the show over the course of it in the spoiler full section a little bit later on but it's really quite ingenious the extent to which they're used. And we hear them speaking, usually little murmurs and ad libs that aren't actually part of the script, but it establishes certain scenes and it helps to create a sense of where we are and what's happening, which in a sort of abstract show can be helpful to audience members who don't know this material. Like I said, in the last five years, anything you can do to convey to the audience exactly what it is that they are looking at is helpful. And to that end, where this production really succeeds, especially in contrast with the Broadway revival, which I thought was so dreadful, is in establishing itself clearly in the first few minutes. Framing is everything in the last five years. And if we get where we start, then we know what's happening. If we know that she's in the end and she's going to go this way and he's at the start and he's going to go this way, then we already know what it to come and it's not like we're going to get dislodged from that understanding. And Hal Chambers and movement director Georgina Lamb, I think she probably deserves credit here as well, has staged the most brilliant first few, not even minutes, moments. The first few moments of this production I thought was so gorgeous and so clear and so strikingly fascinating to me, with the two performers entering the space over these very haunting opening melodies and sort of mournfully and yet with a very. The empty, vacant quality as well, stepping up onto the little plinth and moving towards each other to embrace and dance, which will eventually happen in the show and almost always does, but then not. And passing each other, which is basically a metaphor for what the whole conceit of the thing is, both reaching for what is in front of them, which is a written letter on top of a cardboard box. And then seamlessly, she grabs the letter, he grabs the box, and the two of them pass and they pull them away in this beautiful little moment of staging that leads us directly into the beginning of Still Hurting and contextualizes what it is that we are about to see. She is reading a letter that has been left and he is taking a box of his things away. And another thing that I think is really fascinating is one of the big missteps that I identified in the Broadway production was the extent to which they shared the playing space and how that made the different timelines confusing because they weren't often enough isolated from each other. And curiously, this production does that. It has them sharing the space on occasion, but in a way that I think actually really works. And a big part of that is not doing it at the very beginning for their first couple of songs, although we see Kathy for the first time during Shiksa Goddess, which is Jamie's opening song. And in fact, we've seen a glimpse of him during Still Hurting as well. But technically they are off stage because there is one more part of this set design I haven't told you about, which is a translucent mural of the se. It's this big sort of gauze thing that can become translucent and show the performers behind it when it is lit in a certain way. When I walked in and saw water on this, I immediately connected it to the next 10 minutes, which is traditionally understood to be taking place in Central Park. In many productions, it is specifically staged on a boat on the lake in Central park as they're observing the buildings that make up the Central park west skyline. But what I noticed in the material is that there are actually more references to water than I had remembered, not only when they are sitting on a pier together during See I'm Smiling, but also the entire chapter of Jamie's book that he reads, which is about the two of them swimming together and misunderstanding each other, as well as figurative references in the lyrics of things like drowning. Now, this is a tall, rectangular sort of image, and it is a square section in the middle of it that is cut out and that the performers occasionally are shown behind, which is suggestive, once again, perhaps, of a museum exhibit, but also a little bit like a Polaroid picture. It suggests memory, which is exactly what it's invoking at the very beginning of the show. Because during still her, we see a version of Jaime drinking a beer for courage and then spraying mouth spray. It's a version of him we never get to see in the show. Really building up the courage to talk to her for the first time. Because this is Jamie pre Shiksa Goddess. And in parallel to that, during Shiksa Goddess, we see a vision of Kathy bathed in this warm orange light as well, but separated enough from his story via the Gore's screen. There are more really terrific uses of that as well, which I'm not going to spoil for you directly. I will talk about them a little bit later on. On. But what I will say is that they are very often the result of brilliant work by the lighting designer, Jonathan Chan. And I love the lighting of this production. There are a lot of great moments of intensity, of despair, of warmth, of sort of anxiety as well, being conjured in the lighting design. And the difference between warm and cool is much better understood here than it was in the recent Broadway production where we had this interchangeable orange and blue thing going on like it was a crime scene. Which, you know, honestly, it kind of was. Was. Now, as this production progresses, Jamie and Kathy are actually in more and more of each other's scenes. Jamie is on stage for almost the entirety of songs, like I Can Do Better Than that. Kathy is there for the entirety of the Schmule song. She has dialogue in the Schmulel song. She is participatory in it, which is also what they tried to do on Broadway. But it works here largely because the narrative has already been established by that point. We already know where we are, and it's sort of by the time that we reach Si om smiling, by that point, the audience either gets it or they don't, because we have by then made two distinct time jumps. We have gone from the very end at the very beginning to then the penultimate moment of their relationship from Kathy's perspective. And I bring all of this up and I tell you all of this because when I spoke about the Broadway production, a lot of people said, you don't need to add anything to a show like the last five years. You just have the two of them stand on stage and give brilliant performances of these songs. And this was a really interesting insight into the fact that you can play with it a little bit and you can bring them into contact with each other in this production. And that's sort of the ethos of this production between the extent to which it actually involved partner work and, you know, the way that that was the framing device for the entire show. This moment at the beginning when they were almost embracing, but then not. And the use of the band as well. This production, I think, was characterized by multiple different layers of reality and a lot of charmingly fundamental theatrical storytelling techniques. A lot of it reminded me of, you know, really going back to basics when we tell a musical story on stage and what we can do with that. Now, there is plenty more I want to tell you about this production, and I'm going to give you so many specific details about the creative choices and fantastic things that made me audibly gasp in the theatre. But before I do any of that, before I issue you a spoiler warning, we are going to stay in the spoiler free territory while I tell you a little bit more about these two performances.
- [19:15]
Marc Maron
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- [20:04]
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- [20:41]
Mickey Jo
So Guy Wolf as Jamie Martha Kirby as Kathy I have seen her before on stage multiple times. I do not believe I have seen him previously. I thought they were both pretty terrific. Martha specifically. This is the most sensational Martha Kirby performance I I have ever experienced and what I think really works about her Kathy is she isn't doe eyed and naive, which I don't think really works in the context of her material. When she's singing things like I will not be the girl in the sensible shoes pushing beer nuts and coasters and missing the clues. There is a knowing quality to her. She isn't naive. She understands that she is in a difficult industry. She is self aware. When she muses on her feelings about Jamie's success and sings, I tend to follow in his stride. She is a contemplative character and perhaps even a pessimistic one. That is perhaps one of her greatest character flaws that Jamie often finds frustrating. How many different times during this show does he have to try and force her to believe in herself? This is one of the reasons why I never sort of call one of these characters inherently worse than the other. I think the relationship becomes toxic and becomes flawed in spite of the initial promise that it has. And I don't think there is one singular villain in the last five years. I know that he has an affair and I know that that's Dr. But also at the same time she Spends the entirety of the relationship trying to come to terms with his success by justifying it as something that she is involved in, while he spends the entirety of the relationship simply trying to encourage her to, you know, believe in herself. Anyway, all of this to say she is not a smiley, naive Kathy, the likes of which we have seen before. She is dubious. She is a little emotionally guarded, and I think that really works. And you understand why the two of them are together as well. I've seen productions of the last five years where you question why they're even in a relationship. But. But something about her being like that and him being a very goofy and a very silly version of Jamie kind of goes a long way to explain how these two people found each other and what they, for a time, at least, needed from each other. Because he is very funny in a silly sort of a clownish way. We experience that in the first couple of numbers that he has in Shiksa Goddess in Moving Too Fast. He's very charismatic in his. His delivery and very playful. We see those two personality types coming together in the Schmule song when he is doing a silly dance for her and he is doing clock choreography and then puts her on that spot and she has to do the clock choreography, which was such a charming moment. I absolutely loved that. And him being characterized that way rather than just like, cool, confident guy Jamie, which I think is nowhere near as interesting or as realistic for this. You know, I know he's meant be to be wildly successful in becoming a superstar, but he's becoming a superstar in the world of, you know, being a novelist in his early 20s. He's not a rock icon. Like, he's not. We often get a little bit too excited about his celebrity status. He's still writing books, But I think that makes way more sense with his material. When we think about how he behaves throughout the Shmuel song and the way that she describes him in I'm a Part of that. The Jamie that she tells us about and the Jamie that we meet in those moments of their relationship is a goofball. And there are moments when this might be a little bit. Bit too much. There are occasional explications of lyrics that get to be a little bit almost like charades as he is visually demonstrating consecutive lyrics. And when that happens, I think we sometimes lose a little bit of the overarching message as he's delivering each line at a time. There's also a section at the end of. I think it was moving too fast when he's almost Having an invisible boxing match on stage and losing wasn't entirely convinced by that. But I liked some of the clowning qualities of the performance. It won me out over and it was full of really great choices, great acting choices and great vocal choices. I will talk about both of the voices in a moment because there is a lot of singing in this show. But one particular moment that I loved is he is singing one of the hardest parts. It's after all of the key changes, all the modulations in moving too fast and he has this big extended ah, just keep rolling along. And rather than riffing his way out of it as has been done before, it is a deliberately inelegant dismount as it sort of crumbles and goes oh. And that's a very funny choice. I haven't never heard that done before and I liked it. Back to Martha for a moment. I'm a Part of that. Maybe my least favourite song in this score. Don't Me It Sucks. And I really appreciated the way that she characterized the titular lyric because her face swelled with such pride when she said I'm a part of that. Rather than grasping at his success and rationalizing her involvement in it. She is just looking at him and being in love and he is on stage in this moment with. We don't hear from him, but we see him moving around the stage in this fixation of the creative process, putting post it notes everywhere. And she is charmed and a little tickled by this and that all really works. Also, I'm not going to tell you exactly what she does, but kudos to Martha Kirby for finding a new way to make the name Wayne funny in the first few lines of A summer in Ohio. And you know what? Kudos to Guy for tearing a piece of paper out of the notebook that he has been writing in mid song, crumpling it up into a ball on the floor and then coming back at a later moment and kicking that crumpled up ball, that tiny little thing and connecting to it, launching it into the wall mid song. That was very impressive. That was a rock star moment for me. And speaking of some of my least favourite sections of the material, the way that he does the book reading almost sold it to me. I was almost ready to tear up the receipt and buy this part of the show because. Because I still hate it. But I so nearly didn't. And this is the closest we have ever been to this really working for me. I think a lot of it is the fact that we haven't had such an extended section of Dialogue previously in the show. And another part of it is that it just takes too long to get to the point, which is this parallel for their relationship. What I really loved in this version is that as he is reading it, he gets a little bit choked up as he recalls the parallel with the characters that he has written about and his own relationship with Kathy, which by this point is beginning to encounter a little bit of challenge. Challenge. There's a distinct emotional shift that he portrays during that moment, which was terrific. But now let us talk about vocal performances. Guy as Jamie. It's one of the hardest tenor musical theater sings, I think, for so many reasons, and you're doing so much else on stage simultaneously. And he does a really great job simply to keep up with the material. It's a little bit undersung in comparison to, like, the Jeremy Jordan vocal versions of the past or Norbert's performance in the original version. And it's a little closer, maybe, to, like, a boy band and vocal than something more traditional musical theater in tone. But the range is all still there, which is one of the most challenging parts of the score. He sings real high, and that kind of quality also resonates with the acting performance that he's giving, with the charisma that he is delivering. And, you know what? His face moves, which at this point is something that I have come to appreciate from a Jamie Wellerstein. If you can, you know, conjure more than one facial expression, I'm pleased. Martha Kirby, though, is the absolute vocal power powerhouse of this production. She sounds absolutely stunning and sensational. And some of my favorite choices were the moments where she decided to pull back. Don't get me wrong, there is stratospheric, powerful, high belting. When she was singing Go and Ride the sun, the vibrato that she found, the resonance that she achieved on those top notes was simply thrilling. But there are also moments that are traditionally belted where she decided to pull it back. Not because she couldn't have belted them if she wanted to, she absolutely can, but because she knew the power. Power of a moment of emotional reservation. Great choices were made, but just in general, her vibrato is gorgeous. The upper range is so, so solid. One of her best vocal moments, right towards the very end in I Can Do Better than that when she is sustaining through Stay with me, I want you, and you. It was gloriously sung, but also at all times, so well characterized and so well characterized with her version of Kathy, who we meet with this real sense of determination throughout. We can see that when she is singing I Will not be the Girl and she is really biting into those lyrics, but also as early in the show as See I'm smiling. And I think this is always a really smart choice when Kathy's decided to do this, which is to already be a shade disappointed when singing will have tonight, rather than to allow all of that to suddenly flood in over the little musical break before they launch into you know what makes me crazy? I'm sorry, can I say this? You know the section, you know it well. Finally another song that I have said before isn't my favourite is the next 10 minutes. It is necessary in the show. Structurally, I just don't think it's that exciting in and of itself, especially when compared with the rest of the material. But for the first time in I don't know how many years, I got goosebumps at the moment that she sang the whole section of I don't know how anybody survives in this world without someone like you. That really moved me. And that was the moment where it really crystallized that it felt like I was seeing this relationship for the first time even though I've seen this show so many dimes. In short, they are both doing really terrific work. They are finding fresh, new and believable, real, honest interpretations of these characters who are each of them flawed in their own ways. And we are finding in that a better sense of balance than I have ever perceived before in the last five years. And if you don't want to know about the wildly specific details with which it has been brought to the stage this particular time around, I encourage you to now conclude your time with this review and go and see it for yourself. If you already have, or if you want to know the spoiler details, or if you aren't going to have the chance to go see it for yourself, then let us continue with wildly specific creative choices that I was thrilled.
- [30:25]
Marc Maron
Hey folks, it's Marc Maron from wtf. Today. I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Boost Mobile offers the coverage, network speed and service you're used to, but at more affordable prices. Why pay more if you don't have to? You can get an unlimited plan for $25 a month that will never increase in price, ever. No price hikes, no multi line requirements, no stress. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or find them online@boostmobile.com After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the boost. Unlock unlimited plan.
- [31:14]
Blue Apron Narrator
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- [31:52]
Mickey Jo
Okie dokie. I am going to read from my little notebook here and tell you almost verbatim what I said at various points of the show because I think that's a fun way for us to chat about it. First of all, we need to talk about these musicians and the other moments when they popped up up. First time that one of them became a character was when Jamie was singing about all of the previous Jewish women that he'd been on dates with and he like approached one of the guitarists and showed him his phone and was like hey, come look at this. And was swiping through either like previous photos or like Tinder dating profiles. He showed one to the audience and it looks more like a dating profile at one point. Side note, we see Kathy's phone while she's on the phone and it looks like a call screen. And I can't tell tell you how many times I have seen a phone that is meant to be on a phone call that is so clearly not during a musical. And so to have that was beautiful. However, I have another pet peeve that this production absolutely walked straight into, which is, and you're gonna laugh at me, bad packing. I hate this. This has been a thing since like 2010 when Claire Sweeney was packing a cardboard box full of one duvet in Tell Me on a Sunday. And similarly in this production at the very end Jamie is leaving his wife after their five relationship and he is putting some books because you know, he's a novelist and that's all we really know about him into a cardboard box and he picks up of all things like an Apple Mac and puts it diagonally into a half filled cardboard box of books and then puts more books on the top. Diabolical way to pack your laptop when you are moving in Manhattan. That's insane. Puts a coat on the top like that's going to do anything. And then Cap carries the box. What the hell are you doing that? That's how you're packing your laptop. Anyway, I know you all think I'm pedantic, but we wouldn't be getting the level of dramaturgical depth that you get in these reviews if I didn't care about that nonsense. So the band inclusion only gets more and more elaborate. Like I said, they are the other members of, like, the theatre troupe or like backstage staff with Kathy during a summer in Ohio, which is a necessary sort of a shift because she's in schmule, which can be very difficult because schmule runs straight into a summer in Ohio. And that was one of the big Broadway problems, is that it seemed encouraged her and Shmuel to go out and sing A Summer in Ohio. And they are different timelines. So the fact that we had this break and we had the musician standing up and going and talking to her and saying good morning to her and putting a skirt on her, changing her outfit, changing the timeline was very helpful. It was a nice little cleanse for us. And this is also the number where the band does the most. She goes over and dances with them and she is like, playfully sitting on the piano stool with Ellie and she is dancing with the cellist. And by the end, they all form a kick line together on stage. But also when it gets deraile, I think it's 40 miles east of Cincinnati and it's like Ellie actually says aloud at the piano, nope, you put me off. And then counts back in a 3, 4. Which is hilarious. Also, when she's doing the lines about Richard, who was with me, got uncharacteristically quiet. The bass player stands on stage behind her and lip syncs along because he's being Richard. If he looked out to the audience rather than looking down, it would be even funnier. And if she kind of pointed behind her. But it's a great, great choice. What else do they do? Oh, the musicians are also guests in the function that Jamie is enjoying in A miracle could Happen. And the cellist is the woman that he is anxious about possibly being perceived as flirting with. And when he says, and then there's Kathy, she then moves through the space, but she's not really there. She is with sheet music getting ready for her audition, which is going to be the next song. So that's nice, that sort of sleepwalking, ghostly quote quality. Oh, also, and not for nothing, Martha Kirby is the first ever Kathy to convince me that when you come home for me is actually a good audition song for her. And when she does audition, there is obviously a little bit of interaction with the pianist, as there very often is, but the guitarist and the bass player move from the other side of the stage to stage right to go and be the panel of men, always men, usually gay, and stare at her shoes and her resume, etc. And there's more of this I don't need to tell you about. Every single example the cellist becomes comes the woman in Jamie's bed, which is really interestingly staged because when he's having a full breakdown by the end of the song and he's singing about Kathy, and we see once again the memory of Kathy through this translucent screen at the back of the stage, just kind of moving her hands around herself, giving it ambiguous theatrical angst. Rebecca, the cellist, is sort of recoiling at hearing what Jamie is saying and moving away from him. And there's a back and forth between them. And it gives him an impetus to plead with her. Come back to bed, kid. Take me inside you bl. And he has to sort of win her over with the final lyrics that feel like a hollow sort of a line, because he's repeating what he said to Kathy earlier. Maybe I could be in love with someone like you. And this rising melody that rings a little bit false, but portrays the pain that he is feeling in that moment. All of it seems to suggest a version of this character who has gone home with him, but didn't necessarily know he was married. That's what I was getting from it. If anyone is curious about the lyrics that are used in this version of the show, we had some of the same updates that I encountered in the most recent version on Broadway. It is still a gay dentist named Carl playing Tevye and Porgy. I do think it would be funny if they ever considered reverting to the original Stanley Kowalski lyric there, but that's just me. We also have no more transphobic joke in Shiksa Goddess. We don't have the Gotti Clan anymore. We have Father selling Viagra on Internet. Miracle Could Happen, meanwhile, has reverted back to the original lyrics rather than whatever the hell Nick Jonas was singing on Broadway. Thank God. And there are a couple of specific cultural references that are never really well understood, especially by a British audience, that have been changed. Like the Mr. Ed line in that same song is gone. Although Kathy sings Linda Blair again in Climbing Uphill. These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical rather than the updated Russell Crowe or Nene Leakes version. And I was trying to think of a good, like Britain, British stunt cast, bizarre choice person. They could have put in there, although dramaturgically wouldn't work because it's still an American set musical and that wouldn't really mean much to those characters. Like that's not who Kathy would think of some of the earliest moments where I really started to fall in love with this production. While he is singing moving too fast, Kathy is in the middle, having like a sexy shampoo advert style breakdown, thinking about her career, just getting off the phone with her agent. The phone call has not gone on well, but he is succeeding. And then the overarching brilliance of I'm a Part of that into the Schmule song. He spends all of I'm Part of that writing on these post it notes and planting them around the stage. And then in the Schmule Song he tells the story by picking up the post it notes. This makes no sense whatsoever because this is a huge jump between timelines, but it's charming nonetheless. And by that point we have established enough storytelling clarity that I think we can play with it like that, just a little bit. Like it's technically breaking the rules. But I don't mind because it was works. And a lot of it is also very funny. Her having lines during Shmuel and being like oh, there's more. And her doing the clock dance and trying to remember what he just did is funny. The post it note jokes are funny when he keeps putting them absentmindedly on her shoulder. And she does takes to the post it notes. It's really sweet and critically for a show that we have seen done so many times. It's something a little bit new in the last five years as well. As is this interesting character detail. It is sort of suggested by the end of A miracle could help happen that Jamie might be developing a little bit of a drinking problem in his frustration. He is certainly drunk by the end of that song when he's on the phone singing I'll be there soon, Kathy, I'll finish up this chapter and be out the door. Rather than chapter on that line. He holds up a half drunk bottle and then at the end of the song he stumbles off stage and is caught by the bass player. Here's something else that's different. We almost always stage the climbing uphill audition the same way. But in this Kathy is facing entirely to stage right. She is fully side on to the audience, which is intriguing. She is facing where Ellie is on piano. But it does mean that when she has that fantastic hilarious in a monologue moment singing when you come home I should have told them I was Sick last week. They're going to think, this is the way I sing. That's what she does. She turns her head forwards to the audience and it really works. It really lands the joke. Another cute detail is that we occasionally see the front of the door of their apartment and it's got a number five on it for the last five years. I just thought that was nice. The way that we can do better than that in staged is to have the two of them in bed together. This is the first moment that the top of the plinth is pulled over and it turns into a bed. But after a little sexy transition, during perhaps the most exciting musical moment of underscoring, which is the section going out of if I didn't believe in you into I can do better than that. It's such a musical shift in the identity of the score. The two of them are having, like, this amorous encounter on the bed and then lights down and it wakes up in a very familiar romantic position, which is the two of them asleep. She's in a big, baggy T shirt of his and her leg is over the top of him a little bit inconveniently. It's very charming. It's very relatable. And instead of driving together through the whole song, the two of them are getting ready to leave, presumably to go and meet with her parents or whatever this version of the that number is. But when she's telling him about her friend who got pregnant, she stuffs one of the pillows up her T shirt before, like, delivering it and then hitting him with it. It becomes a pillow fight. It's just so novel. It's so clever, this staging. And these aren't, like, extraordinary, revelatory ideas about how to perform these songs, but there is a freshness and a novelty to them. Going one song back to if I didn't believe in you. She is sat on stage ignoring, acknowledging him throughout this. And I think that's a very risky, dangerous thing to do in this song. But it works here. And it goes back to the framing device, because the framing was this partner work moment. And I think because of what this production is, this kind of examination of a relationship, we need to see this fight from both sides. We need to see the two of them actually having this fight on stage. And the way that she plays it while he is doing all of the work, while he is singing at her relentless stage, saves it from becoming what I think happened on Broadway, which is her just feeling like an utter victim of emotional abuse. Because the problem is he is Singing as though he's being interrupted. And she's trying to speak, but she has no lines, so she's just silently getting battered emotionally. And he keeps, like, screaming more and more and saying, will you listen to me? While she's saying nothing. It's a problem. But Martha is Cathay, a sort of sarcastic, drastically laughing and getting visibly frustrated and rising to it emotionally, rather than simply like shedding a single tear and looking devastated. She is participating in the bitter quality of the argument, which makes it work. But the final creative choice I'm going to tell you about from this production, and my absolute favorite one, is during the wedding sequence, if you like this moment of crossover and the song the next 10 minutes, we see him first by him himself, behind the translucent screen that I've been telling you about. Only the background has been moved away to reveal a mirror. I told you there were going to be mirrors. They love a mirror in the last five years. And there are now dual reflective surfaces creating that thing where the image goes on forever. Like when they show you the back of your head when you're getting a haircut and you see yourself continuing almost infinitely. There is that sense which is sort of like reverberations through time. And he's there, but he's not really there. And it's kind of a memory. And then lights go down and then it's the two of them there together. And then the two of them move out of that space in the most minimal blackout. But in the process of moving around this screen, suddenly she's wearing a wedding dress. It's a reveal to rival Diana the Musical. It's a beautiful moment. They then dance together. It's utterly gorgeous. The lighting in this moment is brilliant. And then there's this shuddering, thundering soundscape as they begin to, after parting, after sharing, having this brief, beautiful moment where they actually get to be in the same time in their relationship. As we've reached the midpoint, they then walk backwards around the stage and revert back to the start. Only it's just her now there by herself. Everything about the way that that is staged is completely emblematic of what I love about this production. It is the last five, five years done in a way that offers clarity, but also finds new charm and new detail. For people who haven't seen the show before, I think it provides a robust enough explanation in terms of its storytelling. And for people who have, I think there's an awful lot to enjoy about revisiting it with a new production that does a lot of things differently. I love this show and I love this version of it. Go and catch it if you can at Reading Rep Theatre or at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester or Theatre Royal Bath. And if by the time you are seeing or hearing this you already have, please let me know what you thought in the comments section down below. I have loved getting to tell you about a production of this show that I really enjoyed and I hope that you felt the same. At the very least, I hope that you did enjoy listening to my review of the last five years and if you did, as always, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel or go follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a State stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
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Marc Maron
Hey folks, it's Marc Maron from wtf Today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Boost Mobile offers the coverage, network speed and service you're used to, but at more affordable prices. Why pay more if you don't have to? You can get an unlimited plan for $25 a month that will never increase in price. Ever. No price hikes, no multi line requirements, no stress. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or find them online@boost mobile.com After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
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Gardeneers Representative
In too many Chicago neighborhoods, access to fresh food is a luxury, not a given. Gardeneers is working to change that by supporting school garden programs that empower students to grow their own produce, learn about nutrition, and fight back against systemic food injustice. These aren't just gardens, they're pathways to health, education and equity. Learn how you can help@gardineers.org let's Grow Food justice in Chicago together.