By Philip Dorian
It’s 1965 in Winterset, Iowa. Italian war bride Francesca Johnson is home alone while her husband and teenage children are showing their prize livestock at the state fair. Itinerant photographer Robert Kincaid appears, asking directions to one of “The Bridges of Madison County” he wants to shoot for a National Geographic spread.
Francesca guides Robert to the bridge in person, and one short hour of stage time later, she’s guiding him again, this time up the stairs of the Johnson homestead and into her bed.
That’s about it, and sudden as it is, one buys into the love that smolders from that first encounter, a notion traceable to the chemistry between lovely Kelli O’Hara and hunky Steven Pasquale, whose Francesca and Robert share four idyllic days.
It’s when she must choose between riding off with her shutterbug lover or staying with her sodbuster husband that sudsy melodrama takes over. There are only so many ways to parse Francesca’s dilemma, and Marsha Norman’s book of the musical adaptation of Robert James Waller’s 170-page novella rehashes them over and over.
Francesca’s future is actually determined long before the play is over, in a creatively crafted scene outside an ice cream parlor. Staged from two viewpoints, the scene resolves the conflict between heady romance and earthbound reality that you knew was coming, even if you’d not read the book (or seen the 2005 Clint Eastwood-Meryl Streep movie).
Up to the point where Francesca makes her decision outside that ice cream store, the natural and believable love story had been wonderfully acted and sung by O’Hara and Pasquale. Ending the tale there would have conveyed more than the remaining – and redundant – 45 minutes.
Jason Robert Brown’s music and lyrics are unmemorable, but quite pleasant. Faint praise, perhaps, but with five strings in the 10-piece orchestra, the overall mood is one of pleasure, enhanced immeasurably when Ms. O’Hara’s vocal instrument is added to the mix. She’s a flawless singer with remarkable emotional range. The show opens with Francesca’s scene-setting prologue, hinting at what’s to come and sung beautifully.
O’Hara’s acting thrills as well. It’s not that you can’t take your eyes off her, just that you are advised not to, lest you miss moments like Francesca’s reaction to Robert’s first touch, a casual brush of her arm as he passes. She freezes for one split second and darts a look at her arm for another. You’ll feel the tingle in your own arm.
I suppose an all-consuming, lifelong devotion can blossom in four days, but a woman’s review of Waller’s book on Amazon.com puts that fantasy in perspective: “The author ignores the fact,” she wrote, “that every man (even the jerkiest of jerks) can be wonderful for the first four days.” Ouch.
The Bridges of Madison County,” at the Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St., New York, N.Y. Information and tickets at 212-239-6200 or at Telecharge.com.
