With her family away at the 1965 state fair, Francesca Johnson looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm. But when ruggedly handsome National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid pulls into her driveway seeking directions, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca's life. Based on the best-selling novel, and developed by a Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning creative team, this new musical captures the lyrical expanse of America's heartland along with the yearning entangled in the eternal question, 'What if...?'"
The Bridges of Madison County stars four-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara (South Pacific, The Pajama Game) and Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me, reasons to be pretty). It features a score by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years) and a libretto by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman (The Color Purple, The Secret Garden). It will be directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific), who reunites with his celebrated Tony Award-winning South Pacific design team, including scenic designer Michael Yeargan, costume designer Catherine Zuber, and lighting designer, Donald Holder. Sound Design is by Jon Weston (How to Succeed..., The Color Purple).
...Pasquale's performance, which is technically impressive and shows at least flickers of nuance. As the cliches pile up, you feel for him, and for O'Hara, and their director, Bartlett Sher, whose credits include some of the most compelling stagings of American classics in recent years (including the 2008 revival of South Pacific in which O'Hara memorably starred). They are burdened, after all, not only with the sentimentality of Bridges' premise, but with supporting contrivances such as Francesca's dull, inexplicably suspicious husband, called Bud, and a nosy but goodhearted neighbor, Marge, who uses binoculars to peer into Francesca's home. (Marge and Bud are respectively, and gamely, played by Cass Morgan and Hunter Foster.)
As devised by its creators, this slow, static and quiet adaptation of Robert James Waller's bestselling romance novel, which was previously adapted into a hit film with no less than Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, is a snooze and a misfire. It revolves around an unexpected tryst between Francesca, the Italian war bride, and Robert, a magazine photographer visiting her small town in 1960s Iowa for just a few days.
Videos
TICKET CENTRAL
Recommended For You