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Bridges at the Menier Chocolate Factory: A Disservice to the Music

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It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Listen to the original cast album instead.

Jason Robert Brown’s nearly impeccable score for The Bridges of Madison County, one of the most gorgeous in musical theatre, begins with the riveting introduction “To Build a Home”, in which Francesca recounts leaving a war-torn Italy and building a life for the past few decades in farmland America with her U.S. soldier husband. As soon as this song began in the original production and redefined what the word ‘Iowa’ could be, you knew this show was going to be special. However, as soon as it begins in this particular production at the Menier Chocolate Factory, you know this show is going to be long. Francesca famously sings “This is Albany…this is Buffalo…this is Cleveland…this is South Bend…” as she travels deeper into the USA. I found myself rewriting these lyrics during the rest of the show: “This is tedious…this is terrible…this is wearisome…this is boring…” And I must remind you, this is one of my favorite musicals of all time.

Now, I’m a fan of Jenna Russell, a beloved fixture of London theatre (seriously though, it’s like the West End casts the same people over and over; where is the London Bernie Tesley when you need one?), but she and her costar Edward Baker-Duly (as the love interest Robert) are so miscast as to make you wonder if the casting directors were forking with everyone, or high. They’re definitely at least high, along with director Trevor Nunn. Yes, Nunn, the celebrated director who recently helmed a wonderful Fiddler at the Menier, is also the wrong fit for this show, making it longer (as you’d expect with him) but also mind-numbingly dull. In theory, the smaller theatre should work for this intimate show, but it just makes it easier to see what’s wrong.

If you don’t know Bridges, the whole point of this story is to watch two people fall in love when they shouldn’t, and to feel their chemistry and understand their deep love even though you know it shouldn’t exist and can’t last. Maybe you know the famous Meryl Streep-Crazy Old Man movie, maybe you know the book; if so, you know this is a paperbook romance kind of jawn and you gotta just lean in and love it. With the musical version, you feel their love through the music, this soaring, heartrending music that beautifully lets you understand their love and maybe think that it should exist after all. There’s not a lot of plot to that – the success of the musical relies entirely on watching the chemistry build between these two characters, which in turn relies entirely on expression through the music.

But when the score isn’t sung as it’s meant to be, then no emotion gets expressed, and no chemistry builds, and the whole foundation of the musical is lost, with nothing for anything else to build upon. The original stars, Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale, are supremely beautiful people, which helped their insane chemistry set that stage on fire. But they also have some of the most powerfully gorgeous voices in the world, and they were so skillful at expressing a gamut of emotion and thoughtfulness through this music that they set new benchmarks in musical theatre. Here, the leads can barely eke out the right notes, and when they hit them, they do not soar; they are barely audible. The actors are also markedly older, which the show semi-acknowledges by changing the ‘for 18 years’ line in the opening number to ‘for 20 years’, although that’s not really it chief. The age increase works on paper, to have Francesca’s loneliness and longing even more long-standing, but it’s still simply the wrong actors. There is no passion, and this show relies on passion. The two have a bit of chemistry, but not the required bucketloads, and it only extends to each other and not to the audience. The entire first act is literally watching these two wrestle with their emotions (while the second is watching them literally wrestle) as their attraction builds and builds. Here, with nothing simmering on the stage, there’s literally nothing happening, nothing to watch, nothing to experience, and the first act is like watching paint dry. And with no soaring vocals, there’s no story to tell, no characters to build. For example, the second act song “Almost Real”, one of the most brilliant character backstory songs written, helps you understand everything Francesca ever thought and felt and how she made her decisions that led her here – if done right. (I also didn’t enjoy Nunn’s addition of having Chiara, Francesca’s sister, say the relevant lines while Francesca sang them.) It’s honestly a shame above all that these exceptional songs aren’t given their due.

The supporting cast fares much better, though how much of that is a result of comparison is a good question. The much-loved Joni-Mitchell-esque song “Another Life” was a bit of a disappointment, with the actress playing Robert’s ex-wife never really capturing the emotion it requires (theme o’ the day), but she still sounded lovely. The comical neighbors Marge and Charlie were wonderful, with Gillian Kirkpatrick stealing every scene she could, and Paul F. Monaghan performing a lovely rendition of “When I’m Gone”, a soulful gospel-y song that without fail makes me cry at its simple but profound lyrics, although the too-long between-verse staging here was overblown. Even Bud (Dale Rapley), Francesca’s thick but well-meaning husband, came off amazingly, and I found myself eager for him to return to the stage even for his super depressing song, just because it meant the leads were off. When that’s the dynamic of Bridges, you know something is wrong. And when the godforsaken “State Road 21” is the best performed song in the show, you really know something is wrong.

To top off all the distressing disappointment on display here, every single song was at least a full beat too slow, adding a good 15 minutes to the run time and making every song, already fucked from the poor casting and direction, sound like a dirge. They did this show dirty, and it deserves better.

INFORMATION

Bridges at the Menier (anyone else think ‘layches on the men-jay’ from I Love You, Man? No, just me?) runs about 2 hours 50 minutes and will play until September 14. If you want to look at your watch every two minutes to see if time is magically moving as quickly as you’d like, then by all means get tickets to this show – it won’t be hard; there were tons of empty seats on a Saturday night (which is a shame for any show, no matter how poorly I think of it). But if you want to appreciate one of the most gorgeous scores ever written for musical theatre as it should be experienced, then just watch this instead:

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