And in a perfect world, every other girl would fly away, and there'd be nothing but me and Cathy, and nothing else would matter...

I saw Norbert Leo Butz for the first time onstage in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. My friend Karl is a showtune encyclopedia, and is a good judge of theater, and he gave me Butz' pinnacle performance in The Last Five Years. Sort of like an Off-Broadway Memento, The Last Five Years traces the history of a relationship between Cathy (Sherie Rene Scott) and Jamie (Butz); the trick is while his narrative goes forward from meeting to end, hers is the opposite - starting the set off with "Still Hurting", a somber, hurtful, and thus totally unexpected start to a musical. From there starts Jamie's narrative, with the a little too over-the-top uber-Jewish "Shiksa Goddess", where he meets Cathy for the first time (though to give credit for the line "if you used to be a man...I'd say nobody's perfect"), this over a latin-styled beat. After that, we're brought down to earth to the bargaining Cathy in "See I'm Smiling", where her modest stage success is cresting, and from there her struggle there is laid out in "Climbing Uphill" and "A Summer In Ohio", while Jamie's story starts out more exhilirating, with the love-crush rush of "Moving Too Fast" and the overcorny "The Schmuel Song". Their storylines intersect at "The Next Ten Minutes" a snapshot into a date where you know already how everything's gonna end, which is sweet yet saddening at the same time. At this point the narratives get reversed, where Jamie's outlook gets more jaded in "A Miracle Would Happen" when temptation sets in, though he's optimistic enough to shove it off ("it's not a problem, it's just a challenge to resist temptation"), while her counterpoint "When You Come Home To Me" regresses her to the simple girlfriend she was. While Cathy's songs get lighter and funnier, like in "Climbing Uphill" , Jamie gets darker and darker, with the pandering "If I Didn't Believe In You", and culminating on his moment of transgression, with his infidelity with his editor in "Nobody Needs To Know", easily the grandest and touching part of the whole piece, putting me in tears with the vulnerability and the callousness of Jamie's rationalization of his misdeeds. The end brings the couple back together, though while Cathy's part is a hopeful romantic tune ("Goodbye Until Tomorrow"), Jamie's is resolved and mournful ("I Could Never Rescue You"). Jason Robert Brown, who wrote The Last Five Years, is expert in presenting an ordinary relationship in a dramatic, extraordinary way, and the helix of opposing storylines adds to the emotion brought forth in Norbert and Sherrie's performances. And anyone wanting to dip into a musical more about the music (and lyrics) than a big production, you can't go wrong starting with The Last Five Years. Thanks Karl!

Listen: Moving Too Fast (Link)

Buy: You can pick up The Last Five Years at websites like here and here.

And while Norbert is the quintessential voice for this role, I came across this collegiate performance of standout tracks "Moving Too Fast" and "Nobody Needs To Know" sung by Danny McHugh...