#1
Posted: 3/13/05 at 6:54pm
Hi everybody. I just got home from the 2:00 matinee of the Skylight Opera in Milwaukee’s production of The Last Five Years, starring Lisa Brescia and Michael Deleget. I’ve loved the score for this show for so long, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing a production for a long time. If you’re in the Milwaukee area, make an effort to see this production. It’s fantastic.
The Skylight Opera is a small, beautiful theatre – perfect for this show. I bought a $15 gallery seat, which puts you about as close to the stage as the first few rows, but higher up. It’s an awkward angle (I was leaning over the edge the entire time because lights were slightly obstructing my view), but I’m actually glad I sat there, since it was so close. I considered moving to one of the empty more-center seats when the show started, but it didn’t turn out to be a problem in the long run. I noticed that there were a lot of older couples there, which I found surprising, but they all seemed to love the show. It made me so happy to see this one pair of old ladies in the dress circle giving it a standing ovation at the end.
The set looked a lot like the set I’ve seen in pictures of the NY and IL productions, and it works very well. It’s very simple – a series of stairs and platforms for the characters to move around on, and during “The Next Ten Minutes” it rotates for the boat to come on and offstage. What I thought was a nice touch was that at the beginning they had a projection screen to come down and explain that Jamie and Cathy tell their stories in opposite order, since not everyone reads their program beforehand and knows that going in (like me, the first time I listened to the CD, I was so lost until I read the booklet). The orchestra was excellent.
The cast of this show was outstanding. They sang and acted the songs beautifully.
Lisa Brescia as Cathy was wonderful. I’ve never really heard her sing before other than a few Aida clips, but wow, her voice is absolutely gorgeous and she was so perfect as Cathy. Her voice, her movements, everything about her performance was what I was expecting in a Cathy and more. I was tearing up in “Still Hurting” and crying at the end of “See I’m Smiling”, which I’ve never done before. She also made me like the one song I usually skip over when I’m listening to the CD, “A Part of That”. I don’t know why I’ve never really liked it, but seeing Lisa pace the stage mimicking shoveling food into her mouth with “handful after handful or Doritos” just made me laugh. Her “Summer in Ohio” was very funny, as was “Climbing Uphill”.
And Michael Deleget as Jamie! I adored him (I may be slightly biased because I also love the character). He has an amazing voice and is someone to watch out for in the future. At first I was a little wary of his performance, because he plays Jamie as a little bit of an earnest, goofy sort of guy at first (throwing air punches in “Moving Too Fast”, all sorts of different movements like mimicking shooting a gun in “Shiksa Goddess”), which I’ve never really thought of him as in those exact terms (or I just never pictured the blocking that way), but it worked really well, especially when you contrast him to the Jamie he is at the end. He acted the part impeccably from beginning (it was the first thing I noticed about his performance, when he came out and said, “I’m breaking my mother’s heart!”) to end. “The Schmuel Song” was especially good (and his imitation of a grandfather clock). It hurt to watch him in “Nobody Needs to Know”. (On a completely superficial note, he’s also very good-looking.)
I never really realized just how much this show breaks my heart until I saw it all play out onstage. All the little things, like how Cathy or Jaime act a certain line or the expressions on their faces, just sting that much more compared to just listening to the recording. Two scenes really killed me: at the end of “The Next Ten Minutes” when Jamie leads Cathy into the boat and she sails away with him just watching her, and at the very last “goodbye”, with Cathy looking so happy and hopeful, and Jamie giving her one last, sad glance, suitcase in hand, before he leaves the stage.
At this show I also stagedoored for the first time (they came out to the lobby, though, rather than outside). I’m very glad I did. There weren’t a ton of people there. Lisa’s mother was there (what a cute lady!) and Lisa came out with this giant, gorgeous vase of flowers she said was from a woman in NY who had seen her a bunch of times in Aida. Both she and Michael couldn’t have been nicer – they happily signed and took pictures and talked to everyone that was there. It was very nice to be able to meet them and tell them what a great job they did. They were both very sweet.
But anyway – if you’re in the area, GO! If I weren’t leaving for spring break at the end of the week, believe me, I would be back next weekend. I was very impressed with the production.
http://skylightopera.com/season.last_five.php
The Skylight Opera is a small, beautiful theatre – perfect for this show. I bought a $15 gallery seat, which puts you about as close to the stage as the first few rows, but higher up. It’s an awkward angle (I was leaning over the edge the entire time because lights were slightly obstructing my view), but I’m actually glad I sat there, since it was so close. I considered moving to one of the empty more-center seats when the show started, but it didn’t turn out to be a problem in the long run. I noticed that there were a lot of older couples there, which I found surprising, but they all seemed to love the show. It made me so happy to see this one pair of old ladies in the dress circle giving it a standing ovation at the end.
The set looked a lot like the set I’ve seen in pictures of the NY and IL productions, and it works very well. It’s very simple – a series of stairs and platforms for the characters to move around on, and during “The Next Ten Minutes” it rotates for the boat to come on and offstage. What I thought was a nice touch was that at the beginning they had a projection screen to come down and explain that Jamie and Cathy tell their stories in opposite order, since not everyone reads their program beforehand and knows that going in (like me, the first time I listened to the CD, I was so lost until I read the booklet). The orchestra was excellent.
The cast of this show was outstanding. They sang and acted the songs beautifully.
Lisa Brescia as Cathy was wonderful. I’ve never really heard her sing before other than a few Aida clips, but wow, her voice is absolutely gorgeous and she was so perfect as Cathy. Her voice, her movements, everything about her performance was what I was expecting in a Cathy and more. I was tearing up in “Still Hurting” and crying at the end of “See I’m Smiling”, which I’ve never done before. She also made me like the one song I usually skip over when I’m listening to the CD, “A Part of That”. I don’t know why I’ve never really liked it, but seeing Lisa pace the stage mimicking shoveling food into her mouth with “handful after handful or Doritos” just made me laugh. Her “Summer in Ohio” was very funny, as was “Climbing Uphill”.
And Michael Deleget as Jamie! I adored him (I may be slightly biased because I also love the character). He has an amazing voice and is someone to watch out for in the future. At first I was a little wary of his performance, because he plays Jamie as a little bit of an earnest, goofy sort of guy at first (throwing air punches in “Moving Too Fast”, all sorts of different movements like mimicking shooting a gun in “Shiksa Goddess”), which I’ve never really thought of him as in those exact terms (or I just never pictured the blocking that way), but it worked really well, especially when you contrast him to the Jamie he is at the end. He acted the part impeccably from beginning (it was the first thing I noticed about his performance, when he came out and said, “I’m breaking my mother’s heart!”) to end. “The Schmuel Song” was especially good (and his imitation of a grandfather clock). It hurt to watch him in “Nobody Needs to Know”. (On a completely superficial note, he’s also very good-looking.)
I never really realized just how much this show breaks my heart until I saw it all play out onstage. All the little things, like how Cathy or Jaime act a certain line or the expressions on their faces, just sting that much more compared to just listening to the recording. Two scenes really killed me: at the end of “The Next Ten Minutes” when Jamie leads Cathy into the boat and she sails away with him just watching her, and at the very last “goodbye”, with Cathy looking so happy and hopeful, and Jamie giving her one last, sad glance, suitcase in hand, before he leaves the stage.
At this show I also stagedoored for the first time (they came out to the lobby, though, rather than outside). I’m very glad I did. There weren’t a ton of people there. Lisa’s mother was there (what a cute lady!) and Lisa came out with this giant, gorgeous vase of flowers she said was from a woman in NY who had seen her a bunch of times in Aida. Both she and Michael couldn’t have been nicer – they happily signed and took pictures and talked to everyone that was there. It was very nice to be able to meet them and tell them what a great job they did. They were both very sweet.
But anyway – if you’re in the area, GO! If I weren’t leaving for spring break at the end of the week, believe me, I would be back next weekend. I was very impressed with the production.
http://skylightopera.com/season.last_five.php
Updated On: 3/13/05 at 06:54 PM
I hope she can do it in NY too someday. She was wonderful. 
