We had rehearsal this afternoon so i was free this evening. I decided to sneak in a viewing of Actors Theatre's The Last Five Years seeing as how with our performance schedule it would be the only chance i got. It's a very unique musical. First of all there are only two people in it and they are hardly ever singing to each other. The story covers *surprise* five years with the male character singing is story from beginning to end and the female character actually going backwards from present to past. They cross at one point in the middle. It seems to be a popular trend to play with the audiences perception of time ever since Memento came around. It tries to be cleaver by doing this but it doesn't seem to use the full potential of this technique. If simply told from beginning to end the story would probably just be conventional and dull so it had to do something. At least the music is good. The score had some wonderful strings in it which have the show a nice sound. Overall i'm glad i went. I appreciate Actors' Theatre's attempt to bring brand new shows to Grand Rapids; I can't wait to see the next one.
Posted by Matthew at September 27, 2003 10:14 PM