238.
THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
The
year is 1965, the place a farm in Winterset, Madison County, Iowa, in the midst
of the nation’s Corn Belt. A still attractive, lightly accented, Italian war bride,
Francesca (Kelli O’Hara), lives there with her farmer husband, Bud Johnson (Hunter
Foster), and two teenage kids, Carolyn (Caitlin Kinnunen) and Michael (Derek
Klena). Bud and the kids drive off to spend a week at the Indiana State Fair
where Carolyn’s steer, Stevie, will be entered in a state competition. No
sooner are they gone than Robert (Steven Pasquale), a hunkily handsome, gently
appealing, top-flight photographer for National
Geographic, stops by the farmhouse to ask directions to one of the seven
local covered bridges he’s been asked to shoot for a photo spread. Instantly
intrigued, Francesca, whose loneliness and sense of alienation in the boring open spaces of Iowa needs
just this inducement, offers to give him directions. They drive off in his
truck, come back to the house, prepare dinner together, and gradually fall in love. As the
week passes and they become lusty lovers, Bud deals with the sibling rivalry of his
kids, with Michael’s growing rebelliousness, and with the increasingly distant
tone of Francesca’s voice whenever he calls. Meanwhile, friendly neighbors,
Marge (Cass Morgan) and Charlie (Michael X. Martin), suspect hanky-panky in
Francesca’s house. Finally, Bud and the kids come home as Robert
wraps up his assignment and prepares go home to New York. Will Francesca leave her family
and run off with him?
Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale. Photo: Joan Marcus.
This simple love story of a
conventional housewife’s passionate but impossible life-changing, one-week
romance with the perfect stranger, originally told in Robert James Waller’s 1992
enormously popular best-selling novel, and later made into a 1995 movie
starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, has now been blown out of proportion into
a Broadway musical directed by Bartlett Sher with a book by Marsha Norman and
music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown; the result is an overlong, overly
sentimental bathroom read of a show. This is not to detract from the fine
performances of the good-looking, highly talented, big-throated stars, who give
their all in the struggle to make something at times almost semi-operatic out
of a paper thin, completely implausible, schmaltzy love story, the kind that
keeps Harlequin romances popular, albeit on a slightly higher literary level. To
emphasize the romantic illusion (while, unfortunately, diminishing the last-chance-for-love perspective), both leading roles have been cast with actors
younger than those in the original, and Ms. O’Hara, whose accent is consistent but not convincing, seems more like the corn-fed natives of the Hawkeye state than
someone from the mean streets of Naples (Sophia Loren’s home town).
The book intertwines Bud and his kids’
week at the fair with Francesca and Robert’s sinful sojourn in bed and bath,
and then moves several years into the future, when the kids have grown and Bud
has died. The sentiment comes pouring out like syrup as the show nears its
conclusion when, after we learn of Robert’s fate, the show concludes with what
surely is hoped will wrench floods of tears from theatergoers as . . . well, if
you haven’t read the book or seen the film, but are really interested, you’ll
go to the Schoenfeld Theatre and find out for yourself. Be prepared, though,
for an ending that differs somewhat from that in the book.
Perhaps THE BRIDGES OF MADISON
COUNTY might have worked better if half an hour had been lopped off, or if it
had been produced at one of New York’s quality Off Broadway nonprofit theatres,
like Second Stage or Playwrights Horizons. Seeing it given the full treatment
of Michael Yeargan’s flying and sliding scenic units against a huge expanse of
Iowa farm country, with a large tree upstage, only underlines the shallowness
of the material. This is a non-dance musical, with only the choreography of
actors rolling scenery and furniture into place offering a sense of musical movement
(credited to Danny Mefford), so the burden falls mainly on Robert Jason Brown’s
music.
The show begins with a promising
prologue song of sorts, “To Build a Home,” sung gloriously by Ms. O’Hara, but
only sporadically reaches similar heights as the story progresses. Much of the
music is of the literal tell-the-story type, and even the big 11:00 duet
between Francesca and Robert, “Before and After You/One Second & a Million
Miles,” has a pseudo-soaring effect that never fully registers emotionally, for
all the passion invested in it by Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Pasquale. There are,
though, several musical delights, such as “Another Life,” a Joni Mitchell-like
tune sung by Robert’s ex-wife, Marian (Whitney Bashor); “Get Closer,” a doo-wop
pastiche sung by neighbor Marge, who harbors an itch of her own; and a gospel number, “When I’m Gone,”
performed by Charlie, Bud, and the company at the time of Bud’s demise.
Most of Catherine Zuber’s costumes look
right without drawing too much attention to themselves, but several outfits appear slightly out of period. For
me, the standout design element is Donald Holder’s exquisitely romantic
lighting; I especially appreciated the effect of the light changing on the
scenic background and covered bridge (cleverly created by rectangular arches that fly in from above) whenever it appeared.
Although the couple seated next to
me failed to return for the second act, forfeiting the hefty price of down
front orchestra seats, there surely is an audience for THE BRIDGES OF MADISON
COUNTY. Only time will tell whether there’s enough of one to sustain a
successful run.
