When love is a matter of when, not why

We have yet to encounter a play such as what was recently premiered at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza. We are referring to The Last Five Years, Jason Robert Brown’s unique tale of soured love. Now on its fifth year, Philstage and 9 Works Theatrical invite the audience to move forward and backward with Cathy played by Nikki Gil, and Jamie played by Wacky Valdez in one of the greatest and most poignant musicals of all time.

In a heartbreaking and moving tale, the intimate piece composed of only two actors makes an invasive microscopic study into the psychological games lovers tend to play with one another. Wacky is a rising young novelist and Nikki a struggling young actress. She begins at the rueful end of their marriage and moves towards a hopeful beginning. He begins as a giddy, young 20 year old who has just met the girl of his dreams but winds up making unfavorable choices.

The stage opens with Nikki drenched in still blue light, singing a somber serenade about her failed marriage. As her ballad enters its final notes, Wacky enters the stage, and it’s now five years earlier. He is excited about a girl he has just met (who is Nikki) and is one step towards becoming a successful writing career. The two continue to recount their stories, with Nikki going back in time, and Wacky moving forward. And if this is not challenging enough, the two interact only once on stage.

Wacky recalls as they started to rehearse that both he and Nikki were present in all of the scenes. “This helped a lot,” he says. “At least we knew what the other’s reaction might be.” When the two stopped rehearsing together, it became difficult for both. “I complained to director Robbie Guevara that I couldn’t hold a hand that wasn’t there,” Nikki says. After some time, however, she got used to it, she continues. “It’s just an acting exercise like miming. I knew it was going to be a challenge. I’m used to interacting with a warm body and feeding off that person.”

This intimate musical won for writer-composer Drama Desk awards and nominations for the show’s Off-Broadway premiere in 2002. The Last Five Years has been dubbed as one of the best shows of 2001 by Time Magazine, contrasting grim endings with promising new beginnings. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, “Brown captures the delicious, embarrassing energy of being young, gifted and meteoric in New York City” — infusing musical styles that exact from a number of musical genres: Pop, jazz, classical, folk, rock, Latin and even Klezmer (from the Jews of eastern Europe).

Brown once told the Washington Post, “There is an inherent intimacy (to the musical that is) not a theatrical intimacy but an emotional (one) that is very rare in musicals and plays. Consequently, so as not to shortchange the experience for the audience, our actors were required to take their roles to a deeper place.”

Wacky explains that “we were required to be vulnerable, figuratively naked. I had to find opportunity to relate to my character and color it absolutely real. But the toughest part was to add truth into the melody… to add color and tone to all these musical lyrics, to make it feel and breathe.” Nikki agrees that it was challenging for her to surrender to the truth of the material, to let go of her vanity with how she sounded to be able to tell the story.

It took some time for us to adjust to the style of the two-person love drama that brings one story forward and the other backward, and at the same time appreciate the atonal melodies from the two leads.    

The show couldn’t have been a more fitting choice to kick off 9 Works Theatrical’s fifth year. The company has brought Grease, Rent, Sweet Charity, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and They’re Playing Our Song, among others, to the viewing public.

Performances on all weekends are scheduled until  Aug. 31, Friday and Saturday galas at 8 p.m.; Saturday matinees at 3:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 4 p.m. For details, call 586-7105 or 0917-5545560 or e-mail [email protected].

(Send your comments to [email protected] or text me at 0917-8991835.)