The Bridges of Madison County is one of the best musicals this critic has ever seen. The bittersweet love story was first a novel, then a Meryl Streep/Clint Eastwood movie, followed by a Broadway adaptation by Marsha (‘night, Mother)Norman and Jason Robert Brown, the Tony Award-winning composer.
Now the road company has brought its version of Bridges to the Ahmanson Theat, where it will play for the next three weeks (with Brown conducting the orchestra). The latter’s music is the heartbeat of the show: twenty-odd tunes which show his astonishing range as a composer. Ballads, blues, country-western, spirituals–Brown is a master of all these idioms, a melodic wizard who also writes meaningful, deeply moving lyrics.
Norman’s libretto also brings life to the story and keeps it driving swiftly down the narrative rails. Norman also shifts the story’s focus in a radically different way from the novel and movie. Now it’s mostly Francesca, the heroine’s story, not Robert the male lead’s. It’s her dilemma which is key: whether to give up her secure but unsatisfactory marriage and run off with the man of her dreams. Norman also deepens the character of Marge (Mary Callanan), Francesca’s neighbor and best friend, making her a stalwart soul who provides Francesca with unconditional support and love when she needs it most. The sisterhood also includes the mostly female townspeople who remain on stage throughout, creating a kind of second family for Francesca, who had to leave her own people behind when she left Italy and came to the USA as a war bride.
As portrayed by Elizabeth Stanley, Francesca comes across as a conflicted but sympathetic woman, torn between duty and love. Robert (Andrew Samonsky), the photographer who has come to Winterset, Iowa to take pictures of its covered bridges for National Geographic, is a complex figure in his own right: divorced, footloose and lonely. He’s sexually attracted to Francesca and does go to bed with her, but only after much moral deliberation (she is married, after all). He’s a macho man with a conscience. Stanley and Samonsky have glorious voices and are consummate actors, stars in the making. There are many other strong performances in Bridge, as well: Caitlin Houlahan and Dave Thomas Brown as Francesca’s young children; Cullen R. Titmas as her dutiful husband, Bud; David Hess as Marge’s husband, Charlie. Katie Klaus stands out too, first as a folk-singer (“Another Life”) then as a raucous State Fair balladeer. Staging is another big plus in this production: scenes unfold swiftly as they move from farm to field to town and fair ground, plus flashbacks to WW II Naples. The seamless quality of the proceedings is made possible by Michael Yeargan’s nimble, chameleon-like set which can be changed in a twinkling, thanks to rear projection, flats on rollers, props that seem to have wings. Donald Holder’s lighting effects are equally dazzling. If the musical has a weakness, it is in the last ten minutes of the show, when Norman’s story takes some strange turns. Instead of ending when Francesca and Robert say farewell, Bridges suddenly deals with a marriage (Francesca’s daughter), a death (Bud’s), and a birth. Irrelevant and unecessary. That cavil aside, Bridges still stands out in every regard; it’s Broadway at its best.
