Theatre in Review: The Bridges of Madison County (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

	Kelli O'Hara, Steven Pasquale. Photo: Joan Marcus

Quality is evident everywhere you look in The Bridges of Madison County. Librettist Marsha Norman and composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown have worked hard and meticulously to translate Robert James Waller's best-selling novel into adult musical theatre. This is especially evident in Brown's score, which combines country music sounds with bits of jazz, folk, mid-'60s pop, and even a touch of opera into a distinctive and sometimes emotionally rousing score. Kelli O'Hara, arguably today's finest musical theatre leading lady, shines as Francesca, the Neapolitan war bride who finds herself in 1965 presiding over a fractious family in the middle of Iowa, wondering where her youth went. In Steven Pasquale, she has a nearly ideal co-star, matching her in star presence and stunning vocals.

Still, for all its telling and touching moments, The Bridges of Madison County stops just short of delivering the emotional knockout punch that it seems to promise all along. This is, I submit, because, from time to time, Norman and Brown seem confounded by the challenge of creating sophisticated theatre from such rudimentary materials. Waller's novel was a genuine publishing phenomenon, but, on the way to selling over 50 million copies -- you read that number correctly -- it was criticized as being little more than a gussied-up Harlequin romance, a misty water-colored romance for desperate housewives. Watching the musical, this charge sometimes sticks.

At its best, The Bridges of Madison County unfolds with uncommon style and grace. The ravishing opener, "To Build a Home," establishes the sorry-grateful aspects of Francesca's life in the Iowa cornfields, thousands of miles and a lifetime away from her native Italy. It's followed by "Home Before You Know it", which provides important details of her marriage to the rough-edged Bud and of her feuding, troubled children, Carolyn and Michael. Left alone for the first time in years while the rest of the family attends a state fair, Francesca is primed to become emotionally involved with Robert, a photographer for the National Geographic who shows up at her door looking for directions. His first song, "Temporarily Lost," describes Robert's essentially solitary nature, striking a tone of yearning that signals heavy emotional weather ahead.

This is followed by Francesca's expression of wonderment, "What Do You Call a Man?", the title of which inadvertently signals the weakness at the heart of the musical: While Norman and Brown have delivered a finely detailed character study in Francesca, filling out her past and rendering her present with any number of tiny, but revealing, details, they haven't provided her with an equal partner in Robert, here portrayed as a sensitive dreamboat precision-tooled to fulfill a frustrated woman's needs. (Many have commented that the book's commercial success lay in the way that it offered its largely female readership a guilt-free fantasy of romance with the kind of man not found in nature.) Shorn of family connections or significant relationships, Robert is little more than an appealing cipher. In the only major attempt at illuminating his character, Marian, his ex-wife, is brought on to deliver "Another Life," in which she laments his one-foot-out-the-door nature. It's a striking number, written in a period-perfect folk-song style -- cabaret artists, take note -- but it does little more than restate what we already know about him. As a result, the story of Francesca and Robert's affair never escapes a certain falseness; because of this, the question of whether Francesca will really throw over her humdrum existence to start a new life with him never really seems up for debate. In addition, the scenes focusing on Francesca's family and neighbors, given relatively little stage time, feel too thinly drawn, and the occasional attempts at comic relief feel thoroughly out of place.

Still, there are many moments marked by musical and lyrical intelligence. "The World Inside a Frame" neatly explains Robert's devotion to photography while nudging his relationship with Francesca a step further. "One Second and a Million Miles" effectively establishes the rapture of their newfound love. And a remarkable climactic sequence, consisting of a flash forward revealing the fates of all the characters, is driven by two of the finest songs in the score, the gospel-tinged "When I'm Gone," which marks several milestones in Francesca's family, and "It All Fades Away," a stunning eleven o'clock number in which Robert wonders what, at the end of the day, he has to show for his life. It is, however, indicative of The Bridges of Madison County's problems that its most moving scenes focus on Francesca's devotion to her family and Robert's life away from her.

As always, O'Hara builds a subtly detailed characterization, keeping tabs on her family's conflicts with a rueful smile, waving away a compliment with a tiny hand gesture, and radiating the joy of her newfound love; she is also thoroughly believable as the older Francesca, taking stock of the choices she has made. Pasquale has less to work with, but his charismatic presence goes a long way toward explaining Francesca's attraction to Robert. He delivers his early numbers with nice understatement, an approach that only adds to the impact of his big Act II ballads. As Bud, who knows in his heart that Francesca's true affections lie elsewhere, Hunter Foster delivers both the character's gruff exterior and his secret heartbreak. There are solid contributions from Derek Klena as Michael; Caitlin Kinnunen as Carolyn; Cass Morgan as a nosy, but kindly, neighbor; and Whitney Bashor, who delivers "Another Life" with flair. Special mention must go to Michael X. Martin as another neighbor, who makes a powerful thing out of "When I'm Gone," sung in concert with Foster.

In addition to doing fine work with his cast, Bartlett Sher's staging makes interesting use of Michael Yeargan's set design, a collection of skeletal elements, most of them brought on and off by members of the company, set against a gorgeous drop depicting a vast Iowa cornfield. (The constant presence of the cast, many of whom remain on stage watching the action, is a powerful reminder of the community to which Francesca has become attached and which she risks alienating with her affair.) Donald Holder's lighting suffuses the stage with crepuscular skies and stunningly rendered sidelight looks. Catherine Zuber's costumes are immaculately rendered examples of mid-'60s Midwestern wear. Jon Weston's sound design provides solid reinforcement for Brown's superb orchestrations.

So much is good about The Bridges of Madison County that many no doubt will find it to be a thoroughly satisfying experience. Still, as an act of theatrical alchemy, it isn't entirely successful; for all the carefully wrought work on its edges, Norman and Brown don't entirely transform its glossy, women's fiction heart. Sometimes it can make you cry, and sometimes, as per the title of one of Francesca's songs, it feels almost real.--David Barbour