Oil Lamp Theater: The Last Five Years
Lili Galluzzo and Abraham Deitz-Green
Oil Lamp Theatre Presents THE LAST FIVE YEARS Review - The Ins and Outs of A Marriage
TLDR: Acting out their joint story of the start and end of their relationship, we follow Jamie and Cathy through their different perspectives in The Last Five Years. The two leads, Lili Galluzzo and Abraham Deitz-Green deliver on both their acting and vocal performances as their character timelines never interact with each other and find themselves acting to the other when they’re not even there.
Lili Galluzzo and Abraham Deitz-Green
Moving Backwards and Forwards at Oil Lamp
Two people stand side by side. They don’t touch. They don’t even acknowledge each other. The opening orchestrations swell around them. They gently spin around each other and head off in different directions, marking the different progressions their timelines will take.
Lili Galluzzo as Cathy with her hair up in a ponytail and wearing an old Show Boat sweatshirt, sits on a large moving box staring at the abandoned wedding ring left on top of it. The end of the relationship.
Abraham Deitz-Green as Jamie wears a backwards baseball cap and a loud striped shirt from a different time period and grins from ear to ear as he sings about how nothing else matters except this woman. The beginning.
During The Last Five Years, these two characters’ timelines don’t intersect except at the halfway point for both their engagement and wedding. We see the two of them intertwined as they sit in the park for a picnic and Jamie proposes. It may be the only time they were truly on the same page.
Then we flip. We see the same moments told through the other person’s perspective as Cathy continues to move backwards towards the start and Jamie continues to move forwards towards the end. We remember the moments from the other person’s timeline as the other hits that point. We saw Cathy’s perspective from their fight right after Jamie said he wasn’t able to stay and then we see what happened for Jamie right before that. We see Jamie’s song about how he believes in Cathy and her acting career right before Cathy’s failed audition after failed audition.
But it never becomes confusing. With each passing scene, their relationship becomes clearer and we see it all come together like a story being told all at once instead of linearly.
Acting When No One Is There
Being onstage by yourself to deliver a monologue or break the fourth wall is one thing. You’re either musing to yourself or finding someone else to interact with. But being by yourself onstage acting to the blank air beside you, like it’s a person itself, requires a different set of skills. Our actors make it seem like it's nothing, acting as if the other is beside them the whole time.
When Deitz-Green brings out a Christmas tree (albeit with a Star of David front and center) he performs the entirety of “The Schmuel Song” by himself, acting out his made-up story. He puts on different voices for each character and acts silly and goofy even when no one is technically laughing and smiling with him. As Cathy finds herself alone at another publishing party, Galluzzo is speaking to someone else as they ask her about Jamie’s success. She pauses and interrupts herself as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
And on top of acting by themselves, The Last Five Years is an entirely sung-through musical and Galluzzo and Deitz-Green deliver. The clarity in their tone t is beautiful and fills the space as they deliver the score with belts and riffs that feel natural and never too much.
Abraham Deitz-Green
The After Party Thoughts
If you’re like me, you may have seen the movie version of The Last Five Years first and are excited to see what the actual staged performance looks like. Obviously the main difference is not having the other character with them during their scenes like they decided to do in the movie, so I was most interested to see how it worked as it was originally written. Galluzzo and Deitz-Green did a fabulous job showing the growth of their characters and painting both sides of the relationship.
For my first time being in Oil Lamp’s space, it’s one of those theaters that’s longer than it is wide, so the stage itself is very deep. There’s levels for the actors to play around with and smaller props brought on for different scenes, but I’m not sure I was sold on the sliding panels as part of the set. They were useful to show when we’re changing scenes, but they didn’t slide easily bringing us out of the moment during the scene transitions.
Aside from that aspect of the show, the feelings of a relationship blooming and falling apart came through delivered through vocal performances that resound throughout the theater. If you’re looking for a musical about relationships and want to see The Last Five Years performed onstage, this production would be a great fit for you!
RECOMMENDED
Lili Galluzzo
When
Now through July 5, 2026
Where
Oil Lamp Theater
1723 Glenview Rd.
Glenview, IL 60025
Runtime: 90min, no intermission
Tickets
$65
Tickets can be purchased through the Oil Lamp Theater website
Photos
Gosia Matuszewska
Find Allie and The After Party featured on Theatre in Chicago
Lili Galluzzo and Abraham Deitz-Green
CAST
Abraham Deitz-Green (Jamie)
Lili Galluzzo (Cathy)
Eli Blanks (Jamie U/S)
Kaitie Bonds (Cathy U/S)
CREATIVE
Christina Ramirez (Director)
Connor Windle (Production manager)
Amy Branahl (Music director)
Brenden Delcorio (Stage Manager)
Spencer Donovan (Scenic Designer)
Elly Burke (Properties Designer)
Taylor Pfenning (Costume Designer)
Rachel Hemm (Lighting Designer)
Maya Reter (Sound Designer/Engineer)
Andy Cahoon (Technical Director)