“THE LAST FIVE YEARS”: Performances are underway for Princeton Summer Theater’s production of “The Last Five Years.” Written and composed by Jason Robert Brown and directed by Eliyana Abraham, the musical runs through July 21 at Princeton University’s Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: Events leading to the estrangement between Cathy Hiatt (Kate Short) and Jamie Wellerstein (Julien Alam) are told from dual perspectives — Jamie’s story is told in chronological order, while Cathy’s tale moves backward in time. (Photo by John Venegas Juarez)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

The Last Five Years is an intimate, poignant musical that depicts a married couple’s gradual estrangement.

The story, songs, and script for the mostly sung-through musical are by Jason Robert Brown. The story is inspired by Brown’s first marriage. Brown carefully describes the subject matter of The Last Five Years (2001) as “personal” (rather than “autobiographical”).

A unique narrative device is employed. For the husband, a successful author, events are seen in chronological order, starting just after the couple meets. For the wife, a struggling actress, the story begins after the breakup, moving backward in time.

This concept recalls Merrily We Roll Along, a musical (adapted from a play) that portrays three friends who grow apart, telling their story in reverse chronological order. The Last Five Years takes the idea a step further; by telling the story in both directions, the characters’ timelines are allowed to intersect once, in a central scene.

Brown is the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist of musicals such as Parade and The Bridges of Madison County. He is a recent atelier guest artist at the Lewis Center for the Arts.

The Last Five Years played off-Broadway in 2002, winning accolades that include several Drama Desk Awards (among them Outstanding Music and Lyrics). A 2013 off-Broadway revival was followed by a 2014 film.

Princeton Summer Theater is continuing its season with The Last Five Years. Eliyana Abraham directs an insightful, polished production that develops multiple themes in the musical, while showcasing the considerable talents of the professional cast members, both of whom (along with Abraham) are Princeton University graduates.

As the show begins we see Cathy Hiatt (portrayed by Kate Short) playing the piano, before she moves away from it to deliver the opening number (“Still Hurting”). The piano piece, the melody of which will be important later, is a waltz that suggests antiquity — the audio equivalent of perusing an old photograph.

Unhealthy aspects of the characters’ relationship are laid bare in the first two songs. The first three lines of “Still Hurting” invoke Jamie’s name (“Jamie’s decided it’s time to move on”), establishing that his needs have consistently taken priority.

Maintaining a connection to the waltz motif, the song is in triple meter, whereas Jamie’s introductory song is in duple. The music emphasizes that right from the start, the two protagonists are not speaking the same language.

In sharp contrast to Cathy’s bitter lament, Jamie Wellerstein (Julien Alam) is introduced via “Shiksa Goddess,” a bombastic, flippant number in which Jamie revels in dating a woman who does not share his Jewish heritage, incurring his family’s disapproval. It amuses him to announce, “I’m breaking my mother’s heart.”

Hayley Garcia Parnell’s lighting further contrasts the amount of attention (professional and personal) the ex-partners receive. Jamie often is bathed in a conspicuously bright set of spotlights, whereas the illumination for Cathy is comparatively dim.

A capable tenor, Alam infuses his songs with a mixture of bravado and debonair sincerity. His performance is marked by consistent eye contact with several members of the audience, as well as the flamboyant smoothness with which he moves around the stage.

Short brings multiple musical talents. In addition to a pleasing mezzo-soprano with which she punctuates key phrases with an attractive vibrato, Short also brings skill as a guitarist, which she periodically uses to accompany herself.

Most of the songs are accompanied by a well-blended three-piece band. Music Director Asher Muldoon skillfully conducts, and also serves as the keyboardist. Muldoon is joined by Natalie O’Leary on violin and Faith Wangermann on cello. (Sound Designer Alyssa Gil-Pujols contributes to the successful balance between the voices and the band.)

Wangermann also provides the graceful choreography for a waltz — a restatement of the melody that opens the musical — that follows the central duet, “The Next Ten Minutes.” In the preceding sequence Jamie proposes, and the couple is married. This scene is the fulcrum of the show, and a rare moment in which the pair interacts.

This rare segment, in which the couple is truly together, is underscored by Costume Designer Bex Jones. Jamie with a white shirt to match Cathy’s wedding dress. The lighting is dimmed enough so that little is visible except for the couple; in this moment only, all of the focus points to them as a unit. The sequence yields an exquisite tableau.

Except for this central scene and a brief segment at the end, Cathy and Jamie rarely interact, even when they are in close physical proximity to one another. Even when Jamie has dialogue or lyrics addressed to Cathy, he often delivers them to an empty chair.

That the distance between the protagonists is physical as well as emotional — Cathy spends a lot of time in Ohio, while Jamie is in New York — is reinforced by Abraham in tandem with Set Designer Yoshi Tanokura.

The characters often are at opposite ends of the stage, with a drawing that represents their current city behind them. Center stage is a brick wall, festively adorned with holiday lights, suggesting the couple’s apartment. Several clocks abstractly hang in the background.

Beyond the shared concept with Merrily We Roll Along, there are shades of a few other musicals. A brief sequence in which Cathy wears a red sweater and remarks, “It makes me look like Daisy Mae” recalls Li’l Abner (1956), a musical adaptation of the comic strip.

Cathy’s later song “Climbing Uphill” is an audition sequence that evokes A Chorus Line (especially when Cathy displays her headshot). The audition song within that number is one of the score’s few overt pastiches. Short stands out in this number, letting Cathy’s determination give way to steadily rising frustration and desperation.

On a deeper thematic level, The Last Five Years recalls musicals from just before and after the year 2000 (particularly Rent): an obsession with time. Brown contemplates this elsewhere, in another married couple’s anguished duet “All the Wasted Time” from Parade, which precedes this show by three years.

In “The Schmuel Song,” a fable that Jamie sings to Cathy (providing a fine showpiece for Alam), we learn the reason for the ubiquitous clocks in the background: the fable concerns a tailor who is promised “unlimited time” by a glowing, talking clock. In “The Next Ten Minutes,” Cathy offers,” Anything other than being exactly on time I can do.”

Abraham takes cues from the lyrics in guiding the actors’ movements. Alam smoothly glides around the stage in several swift, lengthy strides at a time, befiting the character’s restless determination to accomplish as much (in as little time) as possible; Jamie literally takes up most of the space. By contrast, Short lets Cathy be more stepwise and deliberate, her motions slightly sharper.

Despite this show’s inception as a personal reflection on a painful time in its writer’s life, and its development during a specific era of musical theater, seeing it allows us to contemplate the timelessness of its themes. It is a warning to treasure the finite stretches of “10 minutes” available to us.

In a program note Abraham writes that she is excited by the show’s “exploration of time, space, and proximity as it exists in a marriage, and how these things change as relationships change.” What makes this production successful is the extent to which Abraham is able to develop these concepts in the staging of the piece.

The recent production of Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy promised that this would be one of Princeton Summer Theater’s strongest seasons. With The Last Five Years, that promise is fulfilled.

“The Last Five Years” will play at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall, Princeton University, through July 21. For tickets, show times, and further information visit princetonsummertheater.org/the-last-five-years.