I knew very little about the show other than it flopped on Broadway in 2014; directed by Bartlett Sher, it had starred Broadway heroine Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale but ran for just under three months. The composer Jason Robert Brown is a Broadway quandary: his songs are loved by cabaret singers and his scores attract awards - two Best Score Tony Awards (PARADE / BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY) and four Drama Desk Best Music or Lyrics Awards (PARADE / THE LAST FIVE YEARS / ...MADISON COUNTY) but not one of his shows - either on Broadway or Off-Broadway - has ever run longer than three months!
This is the Menier's first Jason Robert Brown show for 13 years after his two-hander THE LAST FIVE YEARS in 2006, and his only other London productions have been PARADE at the Donmar and SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at the St. James Theatre (as was). I must admit that I still have issues with his music and the score for MADISON COUNTY overall didn't really impress either - yes there are some stand-out numbers particularly towards the end of the show but a lot of the time the score sounded like it was stitched together from 'New Country' b-sides. They floated around the auditorium to little effect, but luckily the cast were strong enough to keep my interest in the show going.
I also had very little knowledge of the story having never seen the film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep or read the original novel - interestingly in his programme interview, Brown says that both he and book writer Marsha Norman had to pay lip service to the novel when interviewed in the lead-up to the original production as they both felt the book was under-par and they had changed the plot for the musical.
Italian-born Francesca moved to Iowa with her American GI husband Bud at the end of WWII and, as the musical starts, she is waving off Bud and their teenage children Michael and Carolyn to a Youth Fair in 1965 for a few days. Alone on their farm her thoughts of what might have been are disrupted when Robert, a photographer on an assignment for National Geographic magazine, stops by to ask for directions to a nearby covered bridge as he is photographing Iowa's famous bridges for the project. After showing him the location, Francesca invites him to have dinner at the farm due to the late hour and is charmed by his knowledge of the world, even her old home city of Naples.
Slowly these two lonely people realize that they have a unique understanding for each other and, despite daily calls from Bud, their bickering children and her prying neighbour, Francesca and Robert discover they have both fallen in love. But how can Francesca leave her family despite Robert's insistence that she can just take off and make a new life with him? With time running out until Robert leaves town, Francesca makes a decision that effects her and Robert forever...
Marsha Norman's sparse book which focuses on about six characters cannot fight off the inescapable Mills and Boon elements of the story - the character of Robert is too obvious a romantic fiction device to be truly believable - but thanks to the committed performances of the cast I found it very easy to bob along with the story's current as it raced to it's emotional climax.
Director Trevor Nunn brings his usual drawn-out playing time to the show - it does feel a fairly long 2 hours 45 minutes - but he also elicits fine performances from his cast. There are two good performances from David Perkins and newcomer Maddison Bulleyment as the opinionated teens Michael and Carolyn and a very nice performance from Dale Rapley as stolid and unknowing Bud. Robert was played by Edward Baker-Duly and he was fairly lightweight in the role, he sang well but he couldn't make the photographer anything but a foil for the more strongly-defined character of Francesca.
And what a Francesca the production has in Jenna Russell, once again proving herself as one our finest musical actresses. She played her character's unexpected blossoming into the passionately loved woman she could only dream of with a shifting delicacy that made you believe her every growing smile, every hesitant step along the way, came from the heart. By the time of her soaring last song she had created a character that was truly believable.
The production is also graced with Tim Lutkin's lighting, Tal Rosner's videos and Jon Bausor's clapboard set (Owen wondered if it was the old COLOR PURPLE set!) which opens to reveal Francesca's world of kitchen, porch and bedroom, although I must admit the glimpses of stagehands shifting the sets into place rather pulled focus.
Tom Murray's music direction made the eleven-strong orchestra fill the auditorium so even the most unsubstantial song sounded good. THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is on at the Menier until 14th September and is definitely worth a visit to see Jenna Russell illuminate the work with her lovely performance.
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