The Last Five Queers

Five performers and a pianist present a radically reimagined version of Jason Robert Brown’s original music theatre show, The Last Five Years.  Adam Noviello and Madi Lee have taken the music, adapted some of the lyrics and ‘repurposed’ others, roped in a song or two from elsewhere (you’ll recognise a few) and created a very different scenario: the interwoven stories of five characters, three men and two women.  The performers and director Leanne Marsland make clever use of the club’s bare and tiny stage; the only props are five stools.

Brown’s original is a portrait of a heterosexual marriage in which the wife tells her story from the breakdown of the relationship, and the husband tells his story from the beginning (the show also became a 2014 movie).  The musical premiered at the Northside Theatre, Chicago, in 2001, but it’s had numerous revivals since, the most recent in 2013. 

But forget all that.  Story-wise, it has nothing to do with The Last Five Queers – a cute, catchy and misleading title for this show, trading on a pun.  It’s an ingenious repurposing of Brown’s music and lyrics.  I’ve no idea what he thinks about this – and the description ‘a brand new Australian work’ isn’t entirely accurate – but the show, nevertheless, is by turns sweet, touching, funny, sentimental, uplifting, whiney and powerful.  It traverses emotions and situations that anyone, gay or straight, can recognise.  Loneliness, crippled by shyness, the rush of falling in love – and then realising that love is not reciprocated – or realising that you’re with the wrong person – or realising that you were with the right person all along. 

The music is in the now established style of American music theatre: poppy, jazzy riffs with frequent opportunities for ‘belting’.  There’s no programme as such so I’m not sure if Barnaby Reiter, who did the arrangements, is also the pianist, but – in keeping with Butterfly Club tradition - he’s too loud.  All five confident, talented performers are well up to the demands of the songs’ fast and intricate lyrics – and their acting, with varying degrees of subtlety, keys us quickly into a series of situations that are the settings for the songs.

In the second week of the run, apparently, Jack O’Reilly (who projects a brash confidence very well) will be replaced by the show’s co-writer Adam Noviello. Rebecca Moore came down with something, so Keagan Vaskess heroically steps in for the time being and, with only five days’ rehearsal, is touchingly awkward and funny. Co-writer Madi Lee is the straight girl – or is she? – who’s just a little bit desperate.  Tim Carney is the slightly older guy in a state of confusion – straight, gay or bi?  And Henry Brett stands out for some lovely singing and acting – vulnerable, embarrassed, broken-hearted and finally jubilant.  There’s a neat little plot that ties everyone together, but in the end, it’s all about the songs and the singing and it’s a very entertaining hour or so.

Michael Brindley