ARTS

Superbly directed and acted, 'Last Five Years' sets the bar high for '09

By Clare Croft
SPECIAL TO AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

It's a little early in the year to be calling out bests, but Penfold Theatre's production of "The Last Five Years" will undoubtedly be on my list by the time all is said and done.

In fact, I was close to that point in the first few minutes when Annika Johannsson's Cathy draws her leg up to sit on a chair and read the goodbye letter left by David Gallagher's Jamie to the first strains of a violin melody. It's a simple, sad moment, and if you don't get goosebumps, something's broken.

The five years in the title are the whole of Jamie and Cathy's relationship. As the only characters in the story, you get to know them well, but never together. Writer and composer Jason Robert Brown puts them at odds both in love and in time. We see Cathy's story work backward from the moment she finds Jamie's wedding ring on the kitchen table to end on their first date while Jamie's moves forward.

Though the two share the stage with melting chemistry, they rarely interact. It's part of the written chronology, but stage and musical director Michael McKelvey uses it to great effect. Jamie, a wunderkind novelist, sings a holiday fable while Cathy, a Christmas or two ahead of him, sits idly at the table. She then sings about coming home from her unsuccessful musical auditions to a loving home while staring straight past an unaffected Jamie. The staging tweaks the already heartbreaking performances with bittersweet irony.

In fact, the only duet comes when the couple's timelines converge at their wedding. It's clear that life is moving in opposite directions. The only question is whether, in those rare and beautiful moments when it synchs up, everything becomes worth it. The only other bit of shared song — at the end when each says goodbye to the other, Cathy until their second date and Jamie forever — leaves that open to both optimistic hope and pessimistic hindsight.

That the distance between Jamie and Cathy is so palpable is surprising in the tiny Larry L. King theater. With audience seating surrounding the stage on two sides and the scaled-down orchestra — lacking nothing with keyboardist Steve Saugey and violinist Amy Harris — on the third, it's easy for us to feel closer to the characters than they are to each other.

In that small space, warmly appointed by set designer David Utley as a New York artist's apartment, Johansson and Gallagher excel. At close range every moment of pain, love and humor is broadcast at almost overwhelming force without losing any nuance. With no amplification between their voices and our ears, Gallagher's energetic rendition of the bouncy tunes and Johansson's riveting, emotional takes on Cathy's loss are even stronger.

This is the sort of production that audiences are lucky to see: unique, intimate, beautiful, painful and wonderful.

'The Last Five Years' continues at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday; 5 p.m. and 8 p.m, Sunday; at 2 and 10:30 p.m., Jan. 24; and 8 p.m. Jan. 25 at the Austin Playhouse, Larry L. King Theatre, 3601 S. Congress, Bldg. C. $10-$20. 476-0084, penfoldtheatre.org.

— Joey Seiler

'Delta Dandi'

Some playwriting needs to be rolled around in actors' mouths.

Sharon Bridgforth's writing needs bodies.Bridgforth's newest work 'Delta Dandi,' in its premiere Saturday at the Long Center, has a roundness and thickness to it. The layers of language move and merge with song and dance as the actors conjure mostly momentary characters in the creation of a poetic landscape.

Bridgforth designed the play with the tone poems of African American musicians such as Mary Lou Williams in mind. The result is a performance that feels like a series of poems held together by a loose sense of place: a hot bayou rich with juke joints and simmering collard greens. From this place arises "Delta Dandi's" funniest character, Honey Pot, a seductively wild pianist Bridgforth describes as "the kind of woman who will steal your girlfriend."

The ensemble gives full attention to the humorous sensuality, aided by choreographer Baraka de Soleil, who also dances.

But bodies break and tear in Bridgforth's bayou, ripped apart by racism's violence. Florinda Bryant, who generally seems to be "Delta Dandi's" lead character, shudders with sadness, chest sinking, chin dropping. Yet in the face of lynchings and random violence, the actors tap defiance in their stance. The female chorus evokes women warriors: delivering lines with feet spread, knees bent, pelvises sinking.

Children speak back at racial trauma. Azure Osborne-Lee holds one shoulder back, pumping it as she yells at the unseen white man who beat her younger brother. And then there is Helga Davis, whose bold, deep voice proves the perfect compatriot to Bridgforth's language. Davis can touch deep pain, but she also gives quick, mischievous glances over her shoulder, reminding the audience that she always retains control — and a sense of humor.