{"id":24164,"date":"2023-08-04T11:06:29","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T18:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=24164"},"modified":"2023-11-08T13:54:37","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T21:54:37","slug":"the-last-five-years-honest-and-captivating-production","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/08\/04\/the-last-five-years-honest-and-captivating-production\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Five Years<\/em> honest and captivating production"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to see Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre\u2019s production of The Last Five Years<\/em>, which follows the ups and downs of the five-year relationship between two characters, Jamie (Seth Zosky) and Cathy (Cheyenne Scott). This Tony award-winning musical from playwright Jason Robert Brown features unconventional timelines, with Jamie’s story being told chronologically and Cathy’s starting from the end, moving backwards. This creates an interesting dynamic where the two are never happy at the same time\u2014both are happy early on in the relationship, but not so much towards the end.<\/p>\n

The opening scene takes place several months after Jamie and Cathy have separated, and both are guests at a mutual friend\u2019s wedding. Between the beautiful and enchanting set design, costuming, and the three-piece band\u2014piano, violin, and cello\u2014on stage, it truly feels like an actual wedding.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Last Five Years<\/em> director Julie McIsaac (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In other productions of The Last Five Years<\/em>, Jamie and Cathy would only be seen together on stage once at the same time\u2014at their own wedding. However, Blue Bridge\u2019s production takes a different approach. This makes the narrative very compelling, and I think this is an effective way to understand the characters and how they\u2019re feeling. I\u2019m almost having a hard time imagining it any other way now that I\u2019ve seen it performed in this manner.<\/p>\n

Throughout the show, the songs range from entertaining up-tempo numbers to heartfelt ballads, capturing the roller-coaster of emotions that Jamie and Cathy go through. As an audience member, I felt like I was experiencing the emotions with them. Both Zosky and Scott commit to honest portrayals of the characters.<\/p>\n

Zosky, who was previously in another production of The Last Five Years<\/em>, sings with a gut-wrenching punch. The production is actually almost entirely singing\u2014personally, I think it makes for a captivating performance, but it\u2019s something to keep in mind if that isn\u2019t your preference. Because of this, the band plays nearly for the whole time, and the night is a two-hander with Zosky and Scott carrying the show. This alone makes the performance quite impressive.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure most adults would be able to relate to the lyrics in the songs in some way\u2014if not the specific circumstances, then at least the raw emotions that Jamie and Cathy experience throughout the years of their tumultuous relationship. It\u2019s as if the lyricist\u2019s feelings were bottled up and then perfectly poured into words in these songs.<\/p>\n

Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre put on an intimate and heartbreaking production of The Last Five Years<\/em>. While the plot may not resonate with some, it\u2019s a realistic portrayal of the unexpected and sometimes unfortunate turns a relationship can take.<\/p>\n

The Last Five Years<\/em>
\nVarious times,
\nuntil Sunday, August 13
\nVarious prices,
\nBlue Bridge Theatre
\nbluebridgetheatre.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I went to see Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre\u2019s production of The Last Five Years, which follows the ups and downs of the five-year relationship between two characters, Jamie (Seth Zosky) and Cathy (Cheyenne Scott). This Tony award-winning musical from playwright Jason Robert Brown features unconventional timelines, with Jamie’s story being told chronologically and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24612,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164\/revisions\/24612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}