The Last Five Years: a Musical

Tonight, I went to watch the closing performance of The Last Five Years at Keble College. I had heard the music before, but never seen the show. So good. So powerful. So heartbreakingly tragic.

A two person musical, it's the story of the characters' marriage, told forward from the moment they meet (by Jamie), and backwards from the moment it ends (by Cathi). They sing together only once, at the very middle, when they decide to spend forever together.

Though heartwrenching, I actually find the show incredibly hopeful. Their love, and joy in each other, is so palpable. So real. And though it is SO painful to watch them reach out, and draw back, and fail over and over again to truly connect, the potential for reconciliation is potently present. And even though they fail to ultimately save their marriage, the play is in no way a testimony to the inevitability of that failure. Nor is it a trivializing of heartbreak, or a cheapening of love.

This particular rendition was performed in a tiny black box theatre, and we had incredible seats (front row of a balcony that was maybe 10ft off the ground). The actors were great. So full of energy. They drew you in and became the characters -- melding their reality with your own. Their vocals struggled a bit (at times), but they were so real that it was hard to mind. We were also right next to the musicians, who were great, but tended to drown them out a little.

Overall, such a full experience. And I can't get it out of my head. How, oh how, do I concentrate on my Aristotle, Oedipus, and Bacchai essay?

And Keble, like all colleges at Oxford, is beautiful behind its stone facade.