The Lizard Loft production of Jason Robert Brown's two-character musical, "The Last 5 Years," is a good fit for the small performance space at Marks Garage in downtown Honolulu.

Tucked into a corner of the concrete-floored art gallery that itself is tucked under a parking garage, the intimate playing area comfortably seats 50. Its ring of black curtains cocoons the audience and players into a space that might produce something quite special.

The production features a small, live orchestra, intelligent contemporary songs, and a unique plot line that examines a doomed romance from simultaneous and opposing points of view. It's a modern, bitter antidote to "I Do, I Do."

The young couple in "The Last 5 Years" independently define their relationship. The wife's story begins after the couple has separated. The husband's tale begins on the day they first met. While she works backward in time, he moves forward. Their only duet is the centerpiece in the 90-minute production, in which they both sing their wedding vows.

As a result of that structure, the evening is a search for clues to their failed marriage. Secondarily, it's a hunt for the reasons that brought them together. Neither question is answered with much clarity.

Because the show begins with an emotional break-up and because we see them as a couple only once — and quite briefly — there is little reason to believe they were ever a good match. The musical numbers, then, are a mostly cerebral dissection of the emotional minefields that comprise modern couplehood. The best are built on comic irony.

Immediately following their wedding, the husband begins his emotional estrangement by lamenting that every good-looking woman in the bar is attracted to him, despite the new gold ring on his left hand.

In a piece neatly layered with meaning, the wife sings a traditionally lush lyric about welcoming her husband home, then undercuts it as an audition piece with an opposing subtext.

The most moving musical moment is the show's final number that blends the wife's singing "Good-bye" as a giddy girl following their first date, with the husband's disconsolate "Good-bye" as he finally walks out of their marriage.

Terry Howell fares well in the role of the husband, although some of the songs' high notes do not fit comfortably in his range. Kristin Jann-Fischer is less successful as the wife, with many of her opening lyrics swamped by character emotion and a powerful cello, and her progressively more cheerful moments marked by distracting mannerisms.

Director Andrew Valentine needs to revisit staging basics to assure his performers are easily seen and heard. Too often, the singers are lit only from the rear or step out of their light to sing in semi-shadow. In a show that is already a challenge to follow, straining to see and hear the performers becomes a rude annoyance.