Behind the Music: An Interview with the Cast of The Last Five Years
Few musicals capture the raw honesty of love and heartbreak quite like Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years. With its unique structure – Cathy telling her story in reverse while Jamie moves forward in time – the piece is both devastatingly intimate and universally relatable.
As the show prepares to open, we sat down with Martha Kirby and Guy Woolf, the powerhouse performers stepping into the roles of Cathy and Jamie. In our conversation, they share what excites them about this production, how they connect to the music, and why performing such a deeply human story in intimate venues makes this experience unlike any other.
You can watch the below interview in full on our YouTube Page here
Tell us a bit about you and your previous roles.
Guy:
So my name’s Guy Woolf, I’ve just recently come off as Associate Director of Now That’s What I Call A Musical and I’ve done a couple of musicals here and there and I was in a Drag group for nine years, so it’s been a weird old rogue time.
Martha:
I’m Martha Kirby and I’m currently up in Edinburgh at the Fringe in a show called Club NVLND where I play Wendy Darling. In this production Peter Pan owns a nightclub and Wendy leaves her soon-to-be husband at the altar in pursuit of whether things with Peter Pan may have worked out or not. It’s bonkers but it’s good fun.
I have also played Eva Peron in Evita at Leicester Curve, Raven in Bat out Of Hell UK Tour and Sandy in the UK Tour of Greace.
Tell us about your character in The Last Five Years and how you feel about them?
Martha:
There’s lots to love about both characters I think and a lot to not love about them. I think they’re incredibly human and complex and it’s really interesting to see their polarising journeys along the way.
The thing I dislike most about Cathy is how much of a mirror it holds up to some experiences and auditions that I’ve been through myself, so it’s interesting to go back. Especially the audition section, where Cathy’s auditioning in the show and I can – sort of – relive some really juicy audition moments of my own past, which is really hard but also very interesting to play on. They’re just so human and their stories feel very tangible and a real visceral experience for both of them.
Guy:
I think Jamie is a guy who stuff happens a bit too soon for. He’s obviously got ability with the pen and he loves Cathy. I think he falls really hard in love and really fast. 90% of that is because of who she is but, 10% is also because of what she’s not. Like she’s not the girl from Cheder that he’s grown up with. She’s not the expectation his parents have for him so she’s this alluring other.
We all have these peaks and troughs in our careers but he peaks too soon. I think his whole life runs away from him and he makes mistakes as we all do. He makes these errors that are so magnified. He gets married too quickly, gets success too quickly and he experiences this world which he is not what he’s used to. It’s not Spring Valley, small town New York , suddenly he’s getting his Hollywood moment too young. He misses out on the early mid – late 20’s freedom where no-one really knows who you are and what you’re doing creatively. You can make mistakes and be yourself because no-one’s watching.
He loses that at the expense of fame and then questions everything.
How are you preparing to bring these very human characters to life?
Guy:
I’ve been walking the dog twice a day. I’ve also been continuing my vocal coaching. But mainly I’m looking at what the songs tell us about Cathy and Jamie on a factual level.
I’m also trying to figure out what happens in the gaps between the songs. I’m not coming into rehearsals with any preconceptions more offerings, so that when we come into the room I can discuss with Martha and Hal, our brilliant director, and fill in the picture and the blanks so I have a full understanding of his character.
I’m also trying to be a good boy. I’m trying to run. I’m trying to lose a bit of my tummy.
Martha:
I’m taking some time to sit and listen to what is said about Cathy and what Cathy says about herself. Taking that information to inform how the writer intended the characters to be or quirks for them to have and the isms that Cathy may have. It’s there in the text and then we work from that.
What is it about The Last Five Years that made you want to be a part of it?
Martha:
I wanted to be a part of The Last Five Years because I think it’s just such an epic piece. I think the music is so intricate and there’s something very ominous about the Jason Robert Brown world.
I think in auditions we’re told not to take it on because it’s meaty in its score. I think this is just an incredible opportunity to actually dive into that world and that material and see it filled out to its fullest potential with a great team.
It almost feels, for want of a better word, pedestrian in its communication style. I think that’s why I keep going back to the story being so human. It’s just honest, a raw baseline connection with people. It’s all about connection. So I think it’s exciting to have the space to really honour that.
Guy:
I think what I really like about The Last Five Years is that from the very beginning there is no narrative suspense. We know they break up and the relationship doesn’t work. Cathay’s first song is one of heartbreak and Jamie’s is the amazing happy Shiksa Goddess. So audiences know how it’s going to end but as an audience member you then get to ask why and how they get to this point. In a way it’s very classical – very reminiscent of the structure of Greek Tragedy.
The thing I really love about this show is, this might sound bad but often I think of Musical Theatre it’s often big, big spaces, big singing, big acting. But we’re in really intimate venues doing justice to the complex, intricate music. It’s such an exciting opportunity to also find how the characters communicate to each other in the music, despite nearly all the songs being solos.
We don’t know what’s going to be found in rehearsals, with staging etc and that’s really exciting.
The Last Five Years has had some very successful past productions, including recently on Broadway with Nick Jonas. How do you feel about bringing your own stamp to the musical?
Martha:
I think it is both exciting and terrifying to take on a piece like this. But, I think that’s what makes it so incredible. I think having both elements there to fuel you into really diving into these people and this story is a great thing to have, which I’m excited by.
It’s nice to have that sort of challenge and know how it’s received already, but how then it can be reframed and structured with the incredible team that we’ve got working with it. And it could be malleable in its bones, which is nice.
Guy:
I think it’s an opportunity, because it’s a bit like taking on really famous roles that people think like, such as Shylock or Fagin, classic roles that people think, I know what it looks like.
Because The Last Five Years has been done quite a lot there might be an expectation coming in from people that know this musical really well. But I’m hoping we get to shed that and subvert expectations. It could be almost a bit of a superpower for us. From everything that I’ve heard when we were in auditions, this is going to be a very different version. So I think that’s really exciting.
What are the songs that are your favourites or any particular scenes that you’re really looking forward to getting your teeth into and why?
Martha:
Mine’s not one that Cathy sings, If I Didn’t Believe In You, is one of my favourite songs. And I hope that I just get to sit there and be a recipient or an observer of that text. I just think it’s heartbreaking.
Guy:
Funnily enough, I actually really love Goodbye. I love that Cathy get’s all the fun bits and then Jamie comes in all miserable.
But for Jamie, I love The Schmuel Song. I think that’s such a fun story. And I think it’s really useful as well, because you get to hear Jamie’ creative innovation.
What are you hoping that audiences are going to take from this?
Martha:
I don’t know. I really don’t know what the audience are going to think or what they should feel or what we would like them to feel. I don’t think I have that knowledge now. Which is actually probably the best and most exciting place to be in. What will come from rehearsals will come naturally. I think this story is so subjective to each individual so I think to have an idea of what I want each individual to come away feeling is quite difficult to achieve.
Guy:
The thing I’d be really interested in is can we get to a place where no one’s a villain. l really don’t think Cathy is, but maybe that’s more my challenge as playing Jamie to make audiences feel that way?
I’ve got to see them as human people with flaws and good sides. I also think there is such a specificity to their relationship that within that specificity we can find a universality, so hopefully, someone watching goes “That reminds me of a relationship”, or there could be something oddly healing in watching this story.
The Last Five Years opens 19 September – 11 October