The Last Five Years: The New Jewish Theatre Is Worth Seeing

The Last Five Years, as performed by the New Jewish Theatre is a lot of fun. This may come as a surprise given that the play is all about the rise and fall of a relationship, and is only performed by two people (plus the musicians).

But really, it's a lot of fun. The space is very intimate, and no seat is more than 15 feat away from the actors at any point. The format of the show is interesting, with one of the actors starting at the end of their relationship and working her way backward while the other starts at the beginning and moves forward in time. They only meet and perform together at one point, their wedding.
Even the instrumentation is a bit weird, but the violin, cello, and piano do a great job of style-hopping and keeping things interesting.

The Last Five Years deals with the dizzying successes and heartbraking failures that are so amplified in New York City. While the male lead achieves stunning success as a writer at 23 and continues to climb, the female lead struggles to catch a break in her acting career, creating guilt, jealousy and tension.

The show itself is only about 80 minutes or so, which lends itself to the attention span of a younger audience, as does the majority of the music (songs like, Shiksa Goddess are always a good time).

The show runs through June 21st and is worth checking out. Don't let good theater in St. Louis pass you by. Tickets are available here