Frontmezzjunkies reports: A 25th anniversary concert reveals the emotional architecture of Jason Robert Brown’s enduring musical
By Ross
The first time I encountered The Last Five Years, I remember trying to map it out in my head, as if understanding its structure might somehow make it easier to sit within. Two people. One relationship. Five years. One story moving forward, the other backward. It felt like a puzzle at first, something to be solved. And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped trying and just let it land. That is where the musical lives for me. Not in its cleverness (although it is brilliantly clever), but in its ability to quietly dismantle you once you realize you have already ingested it.
That feeling returned, in a much larger way, at Radio City Music Hall, where Ben Platt (Broadway’s Parade) and Rachel Zegler (Spielberg’s “West Side Story“) took on the roles of Jamie and Cathy for this 25th anniversary concert staging, conducted by Jason Robert Brown himself. Backed by a full orchestra that filled the vast space with clarity and emotional force, the production leaned into the musical’s core strength: its ability to feel deeply intimate even when presented on a grand scale.
What makes The Last Five Years so enduring is its structure. Jamie’s story unfolds in chronological order, moving from excitement to disillusionment, while Cathy’s moves in reverse, beginning in heartbreak and working its way back toward hope. The two timelines intersect only once, briefly, at the united midpoint, before continuing in opposite directions. It is a device that can feel disorienting if not handled with care, and in lesser productions, it has been known to create distance rather than connection. Here, it holds.
Platt approaches Jamie with a grounded confidence that allows the character’s ambition and blind spots to sit side by side. His voice carries easily and powerfully through the hall, but it is the emotional detail within his performance that anchors the evening. There is a clarity to his storytelling that makes the forward motion of Jamie’s journey feel almost deceptively simple, even as it moves toward something more complicated.
Zegler, tasked with the more structurally demanding role, meets that challenge head-on. Cathy’s reverse trajectory asks the audience to constantly recalibrate, to understand where she is emotionally before fully understanding why. Zegler leans into that complexity with focus and control, delivering each moment with precision while allowing the emotional unraveling to reveal itself gradually. It is a role that demands maturity and attention, and she delivers it wholeheartedly.
Watching the two together, it becomes clear why the musical often feels like a quiet competition. Each character is given space to shine, but not always in the same way. Jamie’s path is easier to follow, his arc more traditionally structured. Cathy’s requires more work from both performer and audience, asking us to stay present in a shifting emotional landscape. Depending on where you are sitting, and what you are listening for, the balance may tilt. For me, Platt’s steadiness carried the evening, but I could just as easily understand someone leaving convinced that Zegler had taken the lead. That tension is part of what makes the piece so fascinating.
The orchestra, under Brown’s direction, plays a crucial role in holding everything together. The music does not simply accompany the performances. It shapes them and our souls at the same time. Songs like “Moving Too Fast,” “The Schmuel Song,” and “Still Hurting” land with a weight that feels earned rather than imposed, each number adding another layer to a relationship that is constantly shifting in our understanding and moving in opposing directions.
The Last Five Years is about how these two people experience what unfolds for each of them, how they embrace their love and relationship. The same moments, viewed from different points in time, carry entirely different meanings. Love, in this world, is not a fixed point. It is something that evolves, fractures, and reframes itself depending on where you stand.
Attending this monumental evening, with the music unfolding in both directions at once, it becomes impossible not to contemplate on the way we hold our own stories of love and heartbreak. The parts we move toward, the parts we try to leave behind, and the moments we only fully understand when we look at them from the other side. That is what stays. Not the structure or even the cleverness, but the feeling of watching something familiar shift just enough to reveal what was always there.
And now, with the release of The Last Five Years (25th Anniversary Live at the London Palladium) on April 20, that feeling has another way to linger, carried forward in the music that continues to hold it all together.
