There is that age where everyone seems to be getting married; that twenty (and early thirty) something where wedding presents start to be factored into the monthly budget. On deck: baby bonanza. And then for some, with the not-so-new American phenomenon, the next linear step is the divorce. The Last Five Years manages to explore the two bookends simultaneously. Peeking into the lives of New York couple Jamie Wellerstein and Cathy Hiatt, Jason Robert Brown’s one act musical braids the storyline with heartfelt soliloquies, but it’s the timeline and perspective that make the script so intriguing. Jamie’s narrative moves in a progressive manner from the couple's first date, while we see the reverse decay from Cathy’s angle as she tells the story from the end of their marriage, and works backwards.

Some of the plot is stereotypical New York (Jamie is a rising novelist, Cathy a struggling actress, Jamie is Jewish, Cathy is not), but the punctuating of connubial hardships are anything but cliché. From struggling for independence to yearning for attention, the contrast of watching the two fall in love and crumble in unison makes even the tritest of nuptial nuances spark empathy in anyone who has ever been even close to falling in love.

 
Playing at the Garner Galleria Theatre until June 29, 2008.