REVIEW: PowPAC musical embraces unconventional format

A heart-felt, emotional, two-person musical about falling in and out of love and a relationship is playing at PowPAC through Feb. 21.

“The Last 5 Years” stars PowPAC veteran Sarah LeClair and Poway native Cory Hibbs as Catherine “Cathy” Hiatt, a struggling actress, and Jamie Wellerstein, an up-and-coming writer. Hibbs also directs the show, LeClair is its musical director and both provide the musical accompaniment for each others’ singing.

Together, they successfully portray their characters’ hopes, excitements, challenges and disappointments throughout the course of their romantic relationship and marriage. Each blames the other for their relationship falling apart.

The one-act musical with a minimalist set has an unconventional structure because it is presented from each character’s alternating perspective in reverse order. It starts with Cathy singing “Still Hurting,” where she recounts the pain she is experiencing now that Jamie has decided to leave her. This is followed by a five-year flashback with the upbeat “Shiksa Goddess,” showing Jamie’s excitement after going on his first date with Cathy, concluding she could be “the one.”

The show continues in this alternating fashion, showing Cathy’s perspective in reverse order (going from their breakup to first date) and Jamie’s perspective in chronological order (going from their first date to him leaving their empty apartment). It concludes with both singing good-bye to each other, but due to different reasons — her’s a hopeful one at the conclusion of their first date (“Goodbye Until Tomorrow”), his a sad one at the conclusion of their marriage (“I Could Never Rescue You”).

The alternation is an unusual, but successful, technique in this case since solely going chronologically would have made the show go only from upbeat to sad. This way, the show’s overall tone stayed relatively stable, did not negatively impact the audience’s emotions too much and had some lighthearted moments throughout.

Being the only two actors on stage without taking a break, not interacting with each other until the middle — when Cathy and Jamie get married — and having to also provide all the music via keyboard was a challenge successfully undertaken by Hibbs and LeClair, who both have rich, strong voices. He is the composer-in-residence for the San Diego Opera and teaches music theory and composition at San Diego State University. She is a professional accompanist in San Diego and on the Central Coast, and the vocal director for choir and musical theater at Monte Vista High School. Both have many stage credits, awards and other accomplishments on their résumés.

In LeClair’s program notes on why they decided to not have an accompanist join them, she explains that the music speaks for the characters when they do not, and by doing all the singing, acting and accompaniment themselves, they found “an unexpected intimacy between the characters.” This in turn, created “a more intimate telling of the story” about “these perfectly flawed, beautiful human characters.”

The musical written by Jason Robert Brown has played Off-Broadway since 2002 and a film version came out early last year.

“The Last 5 Years” can be seen at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays plus 2 p.m. on Sundays through Feb. 21 at PowPAC, Poway’s Community Theatre. It is upstairs in the Lively Center, 13250 Poway Road. An elevator is in back for those not wanting to use the stairs.

Tickets are $28 for general admission and $25 for students, seniors and active duty military. Purchase at powpac.org. For questions, contact the box office at 858-679-8085 or boxoffice@powpac.org.