Why are women who are overcome by passionate, sexual love so often depicted as tragic heroines? At least best-selling ones like Tolstoy’s 19th century novel, “Anna Karenina,” written in 1878 and set primarily in the St. Petersburg of Imperial Russia … followed by Kate Chopin’s short 1899 novel, “The Awakening,” which takes place in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. In both cases, the women remain true to their feelings; the men, however, are not to be trusted. They ultimately cause their lovers’ downfall and suicidal death.
At least that’s not the case for Robert James Waller’s “The Bridges of Madison County” – a romance novel (actually shorter “novella”) considered one of the best-selling books of the 20th century. (It stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for over three years and sold 50 million copies worldwide.) As for why? Maybe renowned critic Roger Ebert explained it best when he praised the novella’s “compelling” story for “elevating to a spiritual level the common fantasy in which a virile stranger materializes in the kitchen of a quiet housewife and takes her into his arms.”
Written in 1992, “Bridges’” story begins in 1965, at a rural family farm in the small conservative town of Winterset, Iowa. Here, the featured heroine’s four days of passionate sexual awakening and ensuing illicit love affair (she’s married with children), result in feelings that are 100 percent requited by her single male lover who remains true to her, albeit from a distance (at her request), for the rest of his life. And our heroine remains true to him as well, albeit secretly, in her heart. Maybe that’s a step up for women’s liberation (it’s set in America’s heartland of the 1960s, after all).
Still a rather heartbreaking story for Waller’s two approaching-middle-aged lovers (and for their readers) to endure. And later, their audience – as the book was made into a popular romantic-drama film in 1995 and almost a decade on, in 2014, was adapted into a Broadway musical which went on to win two Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations. Not surprising, as the musical boasts music and lyrics by Tony Award-winning Jason Robert Brown (of “The Last Five Years,” “Parade,” and “Songs of a New World” fame) along with a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman.
Before attending the musical, I decided it was time I finally read the book. As a novella, it only took a couple of hours. I confess I had issues with Waller’s text – especially its drawn-out, superfluous (in my opinion) ending. But I found everything about “The Bridges of Madison County Musical” enchanting. The story ended where it should, still provided brief highlights about what came next, and added just-right amounts of local color, background, and character interplay throughout. There’s even humor! Book writer Marsha Norman’s focus on Waller’s plot and theme while fleshing out so many secondary, hardly mentioned (or simply “possible”) tertiary characters was truly inspired.
In the musical version, we can laugh at an Ethel Mertz-type neighbor (from “I Love Lucy”) for comic relief, actually attend the book’s merely mentioned County Fair, and even briefly “meet” the two lovers’ exes. And in all these cases, we are treated to incredible, sixties’ folk-inspired-and-more musical interludes thanks to Jason Robert Brown’s superlative music and lyrics, performed by a unilaterally talented cast of professional actors and vocalists. In short, I’m saying, if you are familiar with the story, you’ll love this musical (based on enthusiastic audience response), but you really don’t need to be. And even if you hate the premise of romanticizing an adulterous tryst, it’s worth seeing simply for the pleasure of all the live music and songs. (Not to mention the creative rolling and descending stage-sets – an engineering marvel worthy of attention on their own.)
Our heroine is Francesca Johnson – the rather bored but still beautiful Italian war bride from Naples who’d married an American soldier to escape her limited post-WWII prospects and then sleep-walks through the next 18 years of her life while fulfilling her obligations as a farmer’s wife and mother of two (a boy and girl, both now in their teens).
Then suddenly everything she thinks she knows is upended by an unforeseen, life-changing encounter with a ruggedly handsome, idealistic world traveler/photographer for National Geographic. Robert Kincaid is on assignment to photograph Madison County’s seven covered bridges, some of the last of their kind. In many ways Robert – who refers to himself as “one of the last cowboys” – is the last of his kind as well. When he’s “Temporarily Lost,” Francesca helps him find illusive Roseman Bridge; it’s near her home and the final one on his list. While shooting the bridge, he also shoots her (as does cupid’s arrow) and, in the unpredictable ways of the heart, these two lost souls find each other. Along with a deeper, love-centered meaning to their lives.
Now you’re all invited to join them on their spiritual/ physical/ sentimental journey at the Delray Beach Playhouse where this newish musical is playing through May 25, and showcases some of South Florida’s finest. THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is directed and staged by prolific, popular, award-winning Michael Ursua and features a seven-piece orchestra expertly led by busy local musical director and performer Aidan Quintana. With live music at shows a rarity nowadays, Ursua’s Facebook page exhorts, “Come enjoy the score played live!” He describes the musical as “a sweeping romance about the roads we travel, the doors we open, and the bridges we dare not cross that will leave audiences breathless.”
