Susan Granger’s review of “The Bridges of Madison County” (Gerald Schoenfeld Theater ‘2014)
Translating the iconic 1995 love story in which Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood’s simmering passion ignited the screen into a Broadway musical is a challenge. Yet composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown does it superbly, while the exquisite voices of Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale soar gloriously.
Set in 1965, melancholy Francesca Johnson (Kelli O’Hara) nostalgically recounts her journey as a young Italian war bride transplanted from Naples to the vast cornfields of Iowa with the opening number “To Build a Home.” Married to stolid Bud (Hunter Foster) for 18 years, they now have two teenagers, Carolyn (Caitlin Kinnunen) and Michael (Derek Klena). When Bud and the bickering kids take off for a few days at the Indiana State Fair, Francesca stays home. So when National Geographic photographer, Texas-born Robert Kincaid (Steven Pasquale), stops by to ask directions to a particular covered bridge, she offers him iced tea and a home-cooked meal. Acutely aware of their emotional connection, one intimacy inevitably leads to another as they trill the ballad “Falling Into You.”
With a lilting Italian accent, Kelli O’Hara (“South Pacific,” “Pajama Game”) gracefully embodies Francesca’s unspoken sadness and earthy, repressed sensuality, while Steven Pasquale (“Rescue Me”) exudes soulful conviction. Their second-act duet, “One Second and a Million Miles” is a show-stopper. As Francesca’s nosy but kind-hearted neighbors, Cass Morgan and Michael X. Martin add much needed humor, while Whitney Bashor, as Robert’s ex-wife, sings the folk ballad “Another Life.”
Based on Robert James Waller’s sudsy, 1992 best-seller about loneliness, love and longing in the American Midwest, it’s adapted by Marsha Norman (“’night Mother,” “The Color Purple”), who dilutes the essential romantic aspect by devoting far too much time to trivia with Bud and the farm kids. And director Bartlett Sher, perhaps inspired by Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” clutters the stage with far too many distracting, obviously disapproving, rustic bystanders who keep busily moving props on Michael Yeargan’s stylized set, enhanced by Donald Holder’s dramatic lighting.