The Bridges of Madison County, with book by Marsha Norman (adapted from Robert James Waller’s novel) and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, had a short run on Broadway and a more successful national tour three years ago. SRO Theatre Company opened a production over the weekend directed by Kristofer Green that highlights Brown’s luminous score but ultimately can’t fix the muddled plotting of its source material.
The plot follows Francesca Johnson (Trayn Hammond), a lonely housewife in mid-’60s Iowa, as her husband Bud (Michael Ruerhmund) and children Michael (Johnny Robison) and Carolyn (Anneke Keesing) take their steer to a national judging competition at the Indiana State Fair. A rootless photographer from National Geographic, Robert Kincaid (David Hammond), comes up Francesca’s driveway and sparks fly.
The singing and acting throughout is top-notch. Taryn Hammond finds the inner belter in a character who has deliberately tuned herself to a more muted scale. David Hammond struggles on songs that use a more conversational meter (the beginning of “Temporarily Lost” and “Before and After You”) but soars on the ballads. Ruerhmund’s rich, warm-leather voice is a delight throughout that helps to justify the amount of time the show spends “cutting away” to the state fair or the road trip.
Bridges feels padded to the point of bloating. In its defense, some of that padding amounts to the best songs in the show. Kasey Meininger shines beams of multicolored light as Kincaid’s ex-wife in Judy Collins’ pastiche “Another Life” and Elisabeth Tate, charming throughout as nosy neighbor Marge, enlivens the pop-jazz torch song “Get Closer” with a smoky slow burn.
The country-gospel anthem “I’ll Be Gone” sung by Bill Hafner (as the Johnsons’ neighbor Charlie) and Ruerhmund is a rafter-shaking delight on its own merits as the two singers tear into it with both hands, but stands as a monument to audience confusion as those ten minutes have to cover years of time in the characters’ lives. That confusion and frustration deepen as there are another two anticlimactic songs after “I’ll Be Gone.”
Green’s direction does what it can to keep things moving. His use of subtle choreography and younger actors of the company placing the sides of the bridge and removing does a great deal to paint the landscape and extend the minimal set with great prop work from Keely Heyl. His empathy for the characters and their situation goes a long way to smooth out the variety of “Huh” moments. And that score gets a major ally in Music Director Josh Cutting and his crack chamber group who really sell the motifs that tie the show together without beating the audience over the head. That said, the performance I saw was still a wearysome, grinding two hours and forty-five minutes, including an intermission.
The Bridges of Madison County feels like a must-see for adherents of the best-selling novel. If you’re a fan of any of this cast, you get a chance to see them sing some gorgeous music. There just isn’t enough for the rest of us.
The Bridges of Madison County runs through May 7 with shows 8:00 pm Thursday and Saturday, 10:30 am and 8:00 pm Friday, and 2:00 pm Sunday. For tickets and more info, visit srotheatre.org/the-bridges-of-madison-county.html.