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Review: Did Broadway Save the Best for The Last Five Years?
April 6, 2025, 11:15.17 pm ET

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Photo: Matthew Murphy

By Brian Scott Lipton

Failing marriages have attracted artists as diverse as William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams to Ingmar Bergman and Noah Baumbach. But few people have dissected the end of a union with the same precision as Jason Robert Brown, whose 90-minute song cycle “The Last Five Years” has been in continuous rotation in regional theater and on college campuses for the past 25 years.

One would have expected a Broadway bow for this moving show long before now, but here we are -- or more specifically, The Hudson Theatre, where its first Main Stem production has arrived. And for better and for worse, it’s now in the hands of ultra-hot director Whitney White and the rather non-traditionally cast Nick Jonas as rising (Jewish) author Jamie Wellerstein and Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren as failing actress Cathy Hiatt.


Photo: Matthew Murphy

The pair are stepping into some mighty large footsteps, considering their roles have been played in New York by Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott, Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe, and Joshua Henry and Cynthia Erivo (for one night only), as well as Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick on film. So, before the proverbial curtain even rises, the question lingers: Can these two dynamic performers make these roles their own?

As might be expected, the answer is yes and no. Warren is a marvel, her powerful voice and expert skills as an actress painting a complete portrait of the defiantly happy, defiantly determined and defiantly angry Cathy. She’s properly mournful in the melancholy “Still Hurting”; hilarious in the vaudevillian “A Summer in Ohio”; and cockeyedly optimistic in “I Can Do Better That.”

Jonas (likely cast for his formidable name value) is rather too appealing as Jamie; he simply lacks the character’s formidable egotism and neuroticism. His sweeter persona and lighter voice do work very well on the charming “The Schmuel Song,” but he’s not vocally forceful enough to effectively put over such songs as “If I Didn’t Believe You” and “Nobody Needs to Know.” He gives everything the proverbial good old college try, but his pop vocal stylings, including some back-phrasing, don’t do full justice to his material.

As one may know, the show’s structure is a bit tricky – despite some visual help from White and set designer David Zinn -- as Jamie’s songs chart the relationship’s trajectory from the couple’s joyous first meeting to its incredibly painful end, while Cathy’s journey starts at the end and moves backwards to its exhilarating origin. Meanwhile, the pair technically only sing together twice, during the beautiful “The Next Ten Minutes” (set on their wedding night) and the stirring finale (“Goodbye Until Tomorrow”/ “I Could Never Rescue You.”)

Intriguingly, White has the two actors share the stage more often than in previous productions, and the interactions – aided by Jeff and Rick Kuperman’s minimal choreography – add a nice extra dimension to the show. The many costume changes are also a plus, especially Dede Ayite’s gorgeous wedding dress for Cathy, adding some variety and color to what could have been a very drab evening.

For all its pluses and minuses, however, “The Last Five Years” remains what it has always been: a musically gorgeous evening that nonetheless feels incomplete without a book to fully explain all the goings-on. We never completely understand how this particular marriage fell apart – or whether it was a good idea to begin with. Still, for these peerless tunes and the brilliant Warren, go on and say “I do” to buying a ticket.

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