IT WON’T LAST FIVE YEARS, BUT IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO
(THE RELATIONSHIP AND THE BROADWAY MUSICAL)

Although the traditional wedding vow includes the pledge to stay together “‘til death do you part,” sometimes the love and compatibility die first. In some old stories of romance, where marriage is the be-all and end-all, it all ends with the wedding day, What happens after marching down the aisle and riding off into the sunset is summed up with the assumption that “they lived happily ever after.” The two-character musical about love and marriage, The Last Five Years, now playing on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre in a solid production, ain’t no fairytale. The property has a real-life feel with its ache, intelligence, and beauty, courtesy of Jason Robert Brown (music, lyrics, book, arrangements, and orchestrations for keyboard, guitar, drums, and seven string instruments).

It doesn’t qualify as a spoiler alert to say that the audience learns in the first minute that our spouses broke up, as the first lyric (“Still Hurting”) reveals that husband Jamie has “decided it’s time to move on,” “has arrived at the end of the line,” and “is sure something wonderful died.” We will learn how Jamie and Cathy connect emotionally and legally, as well as what transpires between “I do” and “I can’t do this anymore.”

Under the crisp direction of Whitney White, we have inhabiting these two roles Nick Jonas—a pop star with theatre cred that goes back to childhood—and Adrienne Warren, who recently portrayed Tina Turner in that star’s biomusical. They charm and effectively chart the changing levels of couple comfort in alternating songs (almost all solos) that trace the relationship’s ups and downs. His trajectory unfolds from the beginning while hers is presented from the end, with each of her solo scenarios taking the tale into a further flashback. It’s like a series of snapshots of representative moments—turning points, times of pleasures and pressures.

Sometimes the other character is wordlessly on stage, with the exception of a time in the middle when the chronologies catch up with each other for the wedding scene. Since their break-up is not breaking news, the intrigue is not about “Will this relationship last?” but “What happened that made it not last?” But this is already known by many a ticket buyer, who won’t be sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to see it unfold (the plot, not the seat), as there’s a pre-existing fan base this emotional musical has created from prior exposure—its debut was in Chicago in 2002, Off-Broadway mounting the next year, productions globally, off-Broadway revival in 2013, film version the next year, regional productions, cast albums, ad infinitum.

Both characters come off as invested in the relationship and sympathetic. They are neither idealized as flawless nor cavalierly quick in throwing in the towel. Both try to find ways to mend the fraying ties that (should) bind. Each one’s pursuit of success causes stress: he’s at work on a book he hopes to get published and she’s a struggling actress. Finding time and energy to be fully supportive of each other, with huge amounts of patience and fortitude isn’t always easy—especially when he has good luck and she is good and stuck. And events sometimes find them in different states—both emotionally and geographically.

The acting, while convincing and committed, paints Jamie and Cathy as perhaps more “serious” about their career rather than driven, calmer and less edgy or quick-tempered as others have interpreted them. A little more neurotic, quirkiness, and angst in the mix might make them closer to unique personalities and further mine the comedy potential of the roles. But the sharper Brown lyrics offer some wit and fun, especially for Cathy, an actress who takes a job performing multiple roles in regional theatre during “A Summer in Ohio” while she’s rooming with an ex-stripper with a pet snake (named Wayne) and ultimately confessing that the experience is worse than getting “a root canal in hell.”

The audition sequence that mixes the words of Cathy’s audition piece with her inner thoughts could use more distinction between those two elements and more exacting exasperation to multiply the laughs. Jamie’s list song full of names of all the Jewish girls he’s encountered while lusting after the contrasting image of a “Shiksa Goddess” is fun. However, it’s the numbers with palpable ardor and coiled, unleashed frustration that dominate and touch the heart. Adrienne Warren’s singing has power, but that musical muscularity isn’t used indiscriminately in a show-off way. Nick Jonas’s more low-key and rationed vocals work quite well with memorable swaths of laser-beam sincerity and simmering emotions. Both telegraph a variety of strong feelings, intentions, and reactions via facial expressions, plus stillness that indicates being pensive, stunned, or drained.

Set design (David Zinn) and props are somewhat minimal in some scenes where more establishment of place and detail would clarify things more for first-timers. For example, the presence of just a large trunk won’t shout “theater” to everybody until it’s opened and a costume piece is pulled out, so the first lines of “Summer in Ohio” don’t land as well as they might. Having an elevated area where some numbers are performed establishes a sense of different places and adds variety. A few updated references are noted, such as the bookstore scene placed in Target rather than Borders, a chain now defunct in the USA.

The Last Five Years remains a moving study of connection and disconnection, hope and heartache that many can relate to. Finally landing on Broadway (for a limited run, scheduled to close on June 22), it has stood the test of time. We can be sure that in 2027, when musical theater marks such events as the 100th anniversary of the classic Show Boat and celebrations of the centennials of John Kander and Barbara Cook, there will be productions of this Jason Robert Brown gem, noting that The Last Five Years will then have been around for “the last twenty-five years.” And with continuing relevance and relatability for decades more.

photos by Matthew Murphy

The Last Five Years
Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th St
14-week-only engagement ends on June 22, 2025
for tickets, visit Last Five Years Broadway