Theatre / The Last Five Years

The full, two-membered cast in the only moment they sing together.

Give me a day, Jamie.
Bring back the lies,
Hang them back on the wall—
Maybe I'd see
How you could be
So certain that we
Had no chance at all…

— Cathy Hiatt, "Still Hurting".

No matter how I tried,
All I could do was love you
Hard
And let you go…

— Jamie Wellerstein, "Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You".

A one-act, two-person musical by Jason Robert Brown (the Tony-winning composer behind Parade and 13), The Last Five Years tells the story of an ordinary couple as they fall in—and out of—love, inspired by Brown's own failed first marriage.

Jamie Wellerstein is a Jewish novelist from NYC who gets his big break at the age of 23. Just prior to this, he meets Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress, and romance blooms immediately. They get married, but things keep getting in the way: Jamie has frequent press gigs to attend, where he is assailed by endless temptation, and Cathy is unable to get her career off the ground, her greatest success being summer theatre in Ohio (and the Long-Distance Relationship that requires). Cathy accuses him of egotism, Jamie accuses her of being too insecure to handle his success. Ultimately, they can't make it work.

The show is also known for its unique structure. The score consists of alternating solos; Cathy or Jamie occupy the stage separately, and while each song is being sung to a specific person (sometimes each other, sometimes to friends and family), that person is rarely present and certainly never responds. This gives both characters a chance to tell their side of the story, without anyone interrupting to rebut, defend or correct. Furthermore, there is Anachronic Order involved: Cathy, the careful and introspective one, tells the story Back to Front, starting after Jamie has left her and moving towards their first date; headstrong, reckless Jamie goes in the normal chronological direction. The only moment the timelines cross, the exact Climax of the show, is their wedding day. The show's structure accents its characters, who, despite their love, are fundamentally at odds with each other, while also ensuring the show constantly alternates between the perspective of someone experiencing the successful courtship, and someone experiencing the failing marriage.

The score's wit and emotional maturity has been favourably compared to Stephen Sondheim, whilst Brown's music draws on a wide range of styles that include rock 'n' roll, latin, contemporary pop and Jerome Kern, yet still with a degree of theatrical complexity.

The show was adapted into a film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan in 2015.

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This work provides examples of:

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Downplayed or perhaps subverted. Yes, Cathy is off touring in Ohio when Jaime cheats on her during "Nobody Needs to Know". But her absence isn't why — the real cause is their failing marriage, which was happening even before Cathy left. Her physical absence is largely happenstance.
• All Men Are Perverts: Explored, rather honestly, by Jamie in "A Miracle Would Happen".
• All Musicals Are Adaptations: Averted. The plot is an original one, inspired by Jason Robert Brown's failed marriage to his first wife.
• Alter Kocker: Schmuel. Justified in that his story is clearly set in The Old Country (there's no actual town of Klimovich, but it's a Russian surname, while the cities Minsk of Belarus and Odessa of Ukraine are also mentioned).
• Anachronic Order: As stated above, Cathy's scenes start in the present and each one moves further back in time.
• Audience Monologue: Although extremely common in musical theatre, here it's consciously avoided; all the songs are addressed to a specific character, though that character is not played by anyone.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: "See I'm Smiling", which is one of the most depressing songs in an already very depressing show — it being the fight between Jamie and Cathy where the latter finally hits her Rage Breaking Point, and realizes her marriage is damaged beyond repair — happens to take place on Cathy's birthday. Ouch.
• Book Ends/Dark Reprise: Several, including:
  • Jamie's kind, "I could be in love with someone like you", first appears in his first song, addressed to Cathy, and later (and miserably) addressed to his mistress, Elise, in his last song.
  • The first lines of the show are about how "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone… and I'm still hurting". Three songs later and five years ago, in "Moving Too Fast", Jamie sings about how "Some people analyze every detail… But I keep rolling on", using the same melody, if in a different key and tempo.
  • The haunting, romantic waltz theme that plays throughout the show—and is even used as Jamie and Cathy's wedding dance—turns out to be "I Could Never Rescue You", Jamie's final farewell to his marriage.
  • In Cathy's second song, "See I'm Smiling", and second-to-last song, "I Can Do Better Than That", she talks about Jamie: "You, and you, and nothing but you / Miles and piles of you". One is a fresh-new-love celebration of her boyfriend, the other a bitter screed about his egotism.
  • "I Could Never Rescue You" (at the very end of the musical) shows Jamie writing Cathy a farewell letter; "I'm Still Hurting" (at the very beginning) shows Cathy reading it.
  • In "Nobody Needs to Know", as he leaves the woman he's sleeping with to visit Cathy in Ohio, Jamie sings "Hold on, clip these wings". In the next song, "Goodbye Until Tomorrow", a euphoric Cathy sings that Jamie "...can cut through these strings/And open my wings!" The motif contrasts what she hoped for the relationship (that he would free her to achieve her dreams) and what happened (her needs made him feel tied down and burdened).
• Break-Up Song: Really the entire thing is a Breakup Musical, but the focal post-breakup numbers are the opening and closing songs: Cathy's "Still Hurting" and Jamie's "I Could Never Rescue You" (which, for maximum Tear Jerker status, is combined with Cathy's chronologically earliest, falling-in-love tune, "Goodbye Until Tomorrow").
• BSoD Song: Jamie's "Nobody Needs To Know" is noticeably bleaker than anything that's come before, and seems to mark the point when he gives up on his marriage.
• The Cast Showoff: Invoked by "Climbing Uphill". The line "…who have been sitting like I have, and listening all day, to two hundred girls, belting as high as they can!" is usually used to show off the actress playing Cathy's vocal range, though rather facetiously. Also, from the same song, "Jesus Christ, I suck, I suck, I suck!" is often played ironically, having the actress sing the last "I suck" quite beautifully.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Jamie needs privacy in his daily life—the entirety of "A Part of That" is about his constant trips to "Jamie-Land", a place that is absolutely integral to his career, and how frustrated Cathy is that she can't allow herself to drag him back from them. Of course, there's also the fact that All Men Are Perverts, and Jamie is tempted by his deluge of female fans.
  Jamie: All that I ask for
  Is one little corner
  One private room
  At the back of my heart
  Tell her I've found one
  She sends out battalions
  To claim it
  And blow it apart

• Counterpoint Duet: The end of "Goodbye Until Tomorrow / I Could Never Rescue You".
• Deadpan Snarker: Both of the leads, but especially Jamie.
• Distant Duet: Sort of. In the finale, "Goodbye Until Tomorrow / I Could Never Rescue You", Jamie and Cathy are separated by time; however, they don't exactly sing the same song so much as two songs that overlap each other.
• Dirty Coward: Jamie comes off as this when you realize he tells Cathy he’s divorcing her via a letter that he leaves for her to find in their apartment. And he doesn't tell her he was cheating.
• Downer Ending:
  • Apart from the obvious—the breakdown of their marriage—in the end, Cathy is still trapped in the summer stock hell that is Ohio, and it's possible that Jamie's meteoric streak is waning.
  • Even worse, there's evidence that neither of them has learned from their mistakes. In "A Miracle Would Happen", Jamie mentions kinda-semi-flirting with an attractive woman… at least until Cathy shows up, "'cause she knows (they always know)", implying his unfaithful streak has gotten him in trouble before. Meanwhile, in "I Can Do Better Than That", Cathy mentions how she "gave up [her] life for the better part of a year" for her ex, only to have the fellow blow her off "with a heartfelt letter".
• Drowning Our Romantic Sorrows: "A Miracle Would Happen" takes place in a bar, where Jamie is complaining to his best friend, Rob, about the struggles of married life.
• Fading into the Next Song: Often used to maintain dramatic momentum.
• Final Love Duet: Sort of (see Distant Duet, above). For Cathy it's a love song; for Jamie, it's an out-of-love song.
  • The real one, despite being in the exact middle of the musical, is "The Next Ten Minutes", the song where they get married. It should also be pointed out that Jason Robert Brown has a Creator Thumbprint when it comes to love duets, which (with minor variations) holds true across all five he's written^note They're typically in 12/8; the man sings the first verse, the woman sings the second, there's a bridge for both of them and then a third verse for both of them; they typically end with both singers singing the exact same pitch, and "The Next Ten Minutes" fits better than the final number. (Actually, the final number is the formula backwards in some ways, which might have been intentional.)
• First Law of Tragicomedies: The show manages to use this arc, despite being, technically, neither a tragedy nor a comedy. This is primarily because Cathy is The Eeyore—out of her nine songs, there are only three where she's really happy (the wedding and then the final two of the show). In comparison, Jamie is something of a Blithe Spirit and only really starts to get frustrated around when she lightens up… but when he does, he goes so grimdark that he even manages to drag "I Can Do Better Than That" and "Goodbye Until Tomorrow" down with him.
• Foil: Jamie and Cathy, let us count the ways...
  • Both are fiercely ambitious and determined, but Jamie has overnight success, while Cathy works extremely hard for several years, only to get nothing.
  • Jamie—in the bulk of his songs—is optimistic and upbeat, Cathy is cynical and grumpy in hers.
  • Jamie is In Love with Love, Cathy is practical and somewhat jaded.
  • When presented with the opportunity to cheat via a fellow cast member who likes her, Cathy doesn't even think of straying, and mentions the incident to her husband. Jamie isn't so faithful, or so honest.
• Foregone Conclusion: The show starts with Cathy's line "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone".
• Gaslighting: In "Nobody Needs To Know", Jamie admits to his unseen lover that he lies to Cathy about seeing another woman ("Swearing to her that I never was with you and praying I'll hold you again").
• Green-Eyed Monster: Aside from Cathy's suspicions about the large number of flirtatious girls Jamie finds himself surrounded with at various press events, there's an extent to which she is jealous of Jamie himself. Cathy believes herself just as talented as he is, and just as deserving of the runaway success he's received. Thus it frustrates her that, so far, no one else agrees.
• Grief Song: "I'm Still Hurting" for Cathy and "I Could Never Rescue You" for Jamie
• Heroic BSoD: Though there's no proper "hero" of the story, both of the leads get hit with this.
  • The show opens with "Still Hurting", where a stunned and heartbroken Cathy mourns her ended marriage, and wonders where it all went wrong.
  • "Nobody Needs to Know" is where Jamie officially gives up on his marriage. Although he's no longer in love with Cathy, he doesn't seem to take any joy in his affair, either, and the song sounds like a funeral dirge.
• Hope Spot: "See I'm Smiling" is one for Cathy. She is pleased (or trying to be) that Jamie has managed to make it out to Ohio, and is looking for ways to repair their marriage. Then she has that epic blowout…
• "I Am" Song: For Cathy, it's "Climbing Uphill"; for Jamie, it's "Moving Too Fast". Both songs are about their careers, but are also indicative of their general approach to life (and hence the direction we see them moving through time).
• Incredibly Long Note: Enforced in "Climbing Uphill" when the pianist flops a cadence.
  Cathy: Why did I pick these shoes? Why did I pick this song? Why did I pick this career? Whyyyyyyy…?
  Pianist: [finally finds the next chord]
  Cathy: …yyyyy does this pianist hate me??
• In Love with Love: Implied by "Nobody Needs To Know"
  Jamie: Since I need to be in love with someone…
  Since I need to be in love with someone…
• Ironic Echo: Cathy's arc is about total parallel. To start, we have the "Book Ends" entry above. In the third song, "A Part of That", she admits that she tends to "follow in his stride; instead of side-by-side, I take his cue", whereas in "Climbing Uphill" she pledges that she "will not be the girl who gets asked how it feels/to be trodding along at the genius's heels". In the song just before she gets married (chronologically) she's waiting for "When You Come Home To Me", and in the song just after, "A Summer in Ohio", she's waiting for him to come away to her. And she has not only the first song, chronologically ("Goodbye Until Tomorrow", sung to end their first date), but the last. The only song she has that is not a direct echo or parallel to another number is, of course, "The Next Ten Minutes".
  • Also the first time Cathy sings "When You Come Home To Me", she does so earnestly and sweetly, conveying her affection for Jamie at this point in their relationship. When she sings it leading into "If I Didn't Believe In You", it's loud and aggressive, as if she's trying to drown him out and vocally assert her career needs over his.
• "I Want" Song: In "I Can Do Better Than That", Cathy speaks disparagingly about her school friend's Shotgun Wedding and wants to escape that suburban fate, but still wants to find true love, too.
• I Will Wait for You: Cathy has a knowingly reflexive audition song to this effect, "When You Come Home To Me".
• Kick the Dog:
  • In "See, I'm Smiling" Jamie comes out to visit Cathy in Ohio like he promised, but tells her he "has to leave early". That night. Without even seeing her show. On her birthday. On a rewatch, you know he is only making a token effort to be a supportive husband—remember, this song takes place after "Nobody Needs To Know" chronologically—making him look even more cowardly. And his reaction just confirms what she has already suspected.
  • Also, him telling her she's "being crazy" in "See I'm Smiling", to which she screams, "No, I'm not, NO, I'M NOT!" Especially upon a second viewing, when you realize that she's absolutely correct about her suspicions that Jamie's cheating on her, so, no, she's really not being crazy. In that context, Jamie telling her she's being totally irrational just comes off as needlessly mean.
• Leitmotif:
  • The opening riff of "Still Hurting"—the I-IV⁶-♭VII(add2)-I sequence—plays whenever Cathy is hurt by something Jamie does ("A Part of That" and all over "If I Didn't Believe In You").
  • The melody of "Still Hurting" is echoed in "Moving Too Fast", as mentioned above.
    • It can also be heard buried in the accompaniment at the end of both "A Summer In Ohio" and "I Can Do Better Than That".
  • The show starts with a quaint waltz. It is played again just after the wedding, often staged for the newlyweds' first dance. Its third use is as the melody of "I Could Never Rescue You".
  • There's a two-note figure, the 7th of the key descending to a sharp 4th, always played on a bass instrument, which echoes through several songs. It is most prominent at the end of "A Miracle Would Happen" as Jamie is very specifically distracted by Elise, and represents his heart beginning to stray. Appropriately, it is woven throughout that entire song… and, perhaps most damningly, throughout "The Next Ten Minutes".
  • Jamie's "Since I have to be in love with someone …" verse at the end of "Nobody Needs To Know" was meant to be a motif, but the song where it was first introduced ("Irish Girls") was cut in try-outs and replaced with "Shiksa Goddess". The latter song ends in a similar-ish fashion, but motif isn't quite as recognisable.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: In the song "A Summer In Ohio" as Cathy is writing her letter to Jamie from her summerstock gig in Ohio, she finally regrets everything she's saying once she reaches the part where she goes "slowly batty forty miles east of Cincinnati" It is at this point that she erases everything she wrote so far, and the musical accompaniment grinds to a halt.
• Long-Distance Relationship: With Cathy touring in summer stock and Jamie out schmoozing the publishing set, this becomes a major factor in the couple's break-up.
• Love Hurts: The Musical.
• Love Martyr: Cathy. She puts up with a lot of shit for Jamie's sake. (Depending on your point of view, the reverse is also true.)
• Magnetic Girlfriend: Jamie says getting married made him way more attractive to women.
  Jamie: Everyone tells you that the minute you get married
  Every other woman in the world suddenly finds you attractive.
  Well, that's not true.
  It only affects the kind of women
  You always wanted to sleep with,
  But they wouldn't give you the time of day before
  And now they're banging down your door
  And falling to their knees.
  At least that's what it feels like
  Because you. Can. Not. Touch. Them.
• Minimalist Cast: In typical stage performances, the actors playing Jamie and Cathy are the entirety of the cast. Additionally, though there are written instrumental parts for piano, two cellos (one doubling on tubular bell, celesta, and crotales), a violin (doubling on cymbal), an acoustic guitar and an electric bass, the show can also be performed with solo piano accompaniment, reducing the total number of performers in the show to three. (Brown is an accomplished pianist, and another of his Creator Thumbprints is piano-centric scores.)
• Mood Whiplash: Inherent in the story's structure, since one character is always closer to the Downer Ending than the other.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Brown isn't a novelist but he is a playwright and lyricist.
• Motor Mouth: The interior monologue version of "When You Come Home To Me" has about four times more lyrics than the normal one.
• Musicalis Interruptus: When Cathy launches into one more reprise of "When You Come Home to Me" for another audition, Jamie can't take it anymore and has to cut her off before she finishes the first line. Decidedly not Played for Laughs.
• Never My Fault: Both Jamie and Cathy blame the other for their marriage problems. Cathy blames Jamie's selfishness and his being a little too willing to lap up the attention young women give him. Jamie blames Cathy's jealousy and bitterness that she's not as successful. Neither are exactly wrong, and which was the cause and which was the effect is anybody's guess.
• Nice Jewish Boy: Zig-zagged with Jamie, who can be very sweet, romantic, and supportive, but also self-centered, dishonest, hurtful, and a cheater.
• The One Who Made It Out: "I Can Do Better Than That" lays out Cathy's ambition to leave her small town behind and find success in New York.
• Opposites Attract: Jamie and Cathy have very little in common, but love each other dearly. At first.
• Painful Rhyme: In "The Schmuel Song", Jamie describes those who "can't get out of Klimovich" and suggests Cathy is one of them because she's afraid to "go out onto a limb… o-vich". In the movie, he lampshades this with an agonized noise.
• Pep-Talk Song:
  • "The Schmuel Song", big time. It doesn't appear to be that way at first, but the story's moral is that when opportunity comes knocking, go for it, even if it seems too good to be true—you'll never know unless you try. The final verse is a direct address from Jamie to Cathy, encouraging her that she can make it as an actress.
  • "If I Didn't Believe In You" is intended to be one, but Jamie is so frustrated at this point that it devolves into an attack on Cathy.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The dress of Schmuel's dreams is definitely this, though we can only imagine it. His hope was to sew "a dress to fire the mad desire of girls from here to Minsk", and he obviously succeeds, considering that the girl whom he brings it to marries him the very next day. (And since she wears it at the altar, that also makes this a Fairytale Wedding Dress.)
• Properly Paranoid: Cathy worries Jamie is cheating on her. She's right.
• Race Lift: In universe. In the summer stock company Cathy joins, "a gay midget named Carl" plays both Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, a Jewish milkman in Russia, and Porgy in Porgy and Bess, a black beggar in South Carolina. Also, the white Cathy^note initially written as Irish-American, though this was removed in final drafts, plays Puerto Rican-American Anita in West Side Story.
• Rage Breaking Point: After a few years of gritting her teeth and smiling her way through various problems in her own career and marriage, Cathy finally snaps when Jamie comes to see her in Ohio and then tells her he has to leave early (in the movie, "early" is that night), without seeing her show. Also, it's her birthday. She tries to calm as she calls him out ("You know what makes me crazy? I'm sorry—can I say this? You know what makes me nuts?"), but it's not long before she's screaming and crying, years of anger finally pouring out.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech/"The Hero Sucks" Song: Both characters deliver one to each other. Cathy's is "See I'm Smiling", Jamie's is "If I Didn't Believe In You", which is laced with Tough Love but gets harsh.
• Sanity Slippage Song: A funny one for Cathy, with her crazy inner-monologue version of "When You Come Home To Me"; also darker ones for Cathy ("See I'm Smiling") and Jamie ("Nobody Needs To Know") as they each face the breakdown of their marriage.
• Shiksa Goddess: A whole song by this title, in which Jamie rejoices that his new girlfriend is not Jewish and admits that he doesn't really care about anything else. If you were to infer from this that Jamie's and Cathy's relationship is a little shallow… you might be right.
• Shout-Out: Cathy's line "just keep rolling along" and Jamie's line "I keep rolling on" may be a shout-out to another anachronic musical, Stephen Sondheim's notorious Merrily We Roll Along.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: We watch Jamie slide from idealism about his future with Cathy to cynicism as he discovers the difficulties of marriage. Cathy meanwhile slides from broken to giddy with love.
• Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: The story is simple and Slice of Life, and the first song gives away the ending (the relationship doesn't work out), but each song adds depth to the two characters.
• The Something Song: "The Schmuel Song". Used very deliberately; while it would've been easy to name the song "The Story of Schmuel" after Jamie's short story, the song is actually about Cathy, who Jamie sees as a "Schmuel" because she's too afraid to pursue her dreams wholeheartedly.
• "Somewhere" Song: Given a passing nod in Jamie's "A Miracle Would Happen", in which he imagines a world with no other distractions (particularly female ones) where he could concentrate on his marriage with Cathy.
• Starter Marriage: Not name-checked, but the relationship fits the criteria: In Love with Love, Differing Priorities Breakup, both characters are young, divorce comes within five years.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Defied by Cathy, who declares, "I will not be the girl stuck at home in the 'burbs / With the baby, the dog, and the garden of herbs". In the Career Versus Man debate, she picks her career. Unfortunately, so does Jamie.
• Stepford Smiler: In "A Part of That", very strongly in "See I'm Smiling", and even as early as "A Summer in Ohio" we see Cathy gritting her teeth and making the best of a situation she is not happy about. By the time of "See I'm Smiling", the facade is visibly cracking.
• Stylistic Suck: Cathy gets hit with this in the opening moments of "Climbing Uphill". In the Original Cast Recording and movie soundtrack, the accompanist takes off at a very sprightly pace and a half-step higher than written, forcing Sherie Rene Scott and/or Anna Kendrick to scramble in their wake. In the 2013 Off-Broadway Revival, Betsy Wolfe gets afflicted with someone who can't piano whatsoever, taking some six beats before they consent to be in a key at all.
• Sung-Through Musical: Though not without at least a little bit of dialogue to set the scene for "If I Didn't Believe In You". There is also a lengthy monologue after "Climbing Uphill" where Jamie reads a passage from his book for a public appearance. (It also should be noted that the only time Cathy ever has a spoken monologue is during "Moving Too Fast", when she is speaking to her agent on the phone.)
• Take That!: The entirety of "Climbing Uphill" is pretty much a middle finger to the audition process of Broadway musicals. Of note is the line, "Why am I working so hard? These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical". A reference to Blair's brief time playing Rizzo in the 1994 Broadway revival of Grease. The film changed it to Russell Crowe, in reference to his questionable singing in the film version of Les Misérables.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. Jamie tells Cathy when he breaks up with her "It's not about another shrink", indicating they have seen a therapist, and perhaps several, but it didn't help.
• Time Dissonance: In a way that comments on how love affects our sense of time. In "Still Hurting" and "See I'm Smiling", Cathy is begging Jamie to give her a little more time so they can fix their marriage. In "Schmuel Song", Jamie gives her the gift of "unlimited time", and in "The Next Ten Minutes", he promises her forever.
• Time Travel: Schmuel's talking clock winds time backward as he sews the dress, subjecting the old tailor to forty-one years' worth of Merlin Sickness in a single night.
• Too Much Alike: Cathy and Jamie are both in creative professions. If they weren't, they probably wouldn't have experienced the comparison and jealousy that tears them apart. They both also put their careers before their relationship.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change:
  • Subverted in "Nobody Needs To Know", which is in A-flat for its entirety up until the last six measures, when it modulates down a half-step into G major.
  • Played straight in "Goodbye Until Tomorrow".
  • Played With in "Moving Too Fast", Jamie's triumphant litany of newfound success. It ratchets up the half-step an astounding seven times times, putting us a fifth above where we started… at which point Jason Robert Brown resolves it as a dominant, and lands us back in the original key. So, getting super excited just to go nowhere, huh?
    • Although also played straight with the final verse. "Out of control, out of control…"
• Unwanted Harem: In "A Miracle Would Happen" Jamie laments that, no sooner is he married, his literary success suddenly makes him a huge hit with lots of co-ed undergrads. As time passes, it becomes clear that it is not the harem that's unwanted, but rather his wife's disapproval.
• Wham Line:
  • Cathy's entire blowup in "See, I'm Smiling" is shocking in that we see just how strained the marriage is towards the end, but one line in particular underlines how deeply bad things have gotten. It also makes it clear Cathy knows what Jamie's getting up to behind her back.
    Cathy: You could stay with your wife on her fucking birthday, and you could, God forbid, even see my show. And I know in your soul it must drive you crazy, that you won't get to play with your little girlfriends!
  • It's a bitterly cruel thing to say, but it's also the fundamental truth at the heart of their relationship: Cathy is seemingly incapable of not resenting Jamie's success.
    Jamie: I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy. I will not lose because you can't win.
    • Jason Robert Brown describes that song as the hardest one of the entire play to write.
      Jason Robert Brown: There are points when you're in those discussions where anything you say could be the thing that sort of capsizes the entire rest of the night, at least, if not the rest of your entire life. So he does not know he's walking into "I will not fail so you can be comfortable". He thinks it, but he's never going to say it, you know—and then eventually he gets himself to a point where he has to.
  • Jamie's infidelity is largely irrelevant—it only happens after he has already privately given up on their relationship. It's a manifestation of their dying marriage, not a cause. But because infidelity is such a hot-button topic, some viewers see the line as a Wham Line.
    Jamie: We should get up, kid. Cathy is waiting.
• When She Smiles: Gender Flipped in "A Part of That".

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