| THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY | |
| Posted by: | jmill 01:30 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| I saw BRIDGES this past week, and I've been struggling with how I felt about it. On the one hand, the new musical has a gentle, haunting beauty, an often gorgeous score, and two terrific lead performances. Yet, while it was ultimately moving, it failed to provide the emotional wallop you would expect from this story. In total, for me, the show's strengths outweighed the shortcomings, and I found much that was beautiful and admirable in BRIDGES. BRIDGES intentionally makes no attempt to be a rousing, exciting show. It concentrates on telling an intimate, simple, and romantic story that builds slowly but eventually is engrossing, with some real dramatic tension. Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale sing gloriously, and there is some real heat between them. Jason Robert Brown has provided them with lots of ravishing songs, culminating in the soaring "One Second & A Million Miles," which is both beautiful and the evening's high point. Some of the music is operatic in its feel. The scenes and songs involving the secondary characters weren't as strong or effective but didn't bother me as much as they have bothered some other posters. In a score heavy on serious love songs, the scenes that don't involve the two leads bring some needed variety to the score without upsetting the overall tone of the musical. Responses to Bartlett Sher's staging have been mixed, but I appreciated his fluid, sensitive, and cinematic work. BRIDGES has a lush romanticism, and the longing and desire that O'Hara's and Pasquale's characters feel comes over as genuine. O'Hara, always a favorite of mine, has given a string of wonderful performances, and she is particularly radiant and convincing in BRIDGES. I found myself comparing BRIDGES to PIAZZA, a more successfully executed show that involved many of the same people. PIAZZA had a more poignant and dramatically involving conclusion, and that is where BRIDGES comes up a little short. I consider myself an easy target for tear inducing theater, and I wanted more from BRIDGES on that front. The story's closing scenes, often sad and touching, don't, nevertheless, pack the emotional punch or resonance I had hoped for. In fairness, there were people sitting near me who were audibly weeping and clearly impacted. For whatever reason, I did not respond as strongly, for reasons I still can't totally explain. That said, I definitely liked BRIDGES, with its beauty, its music, its leads, and its score providing much to appreciate; I just can't help but wish for a more emotionally satisfying payoff. | |
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| emotionally satisfying payoff. | |
| Posted by: | jero 09:10 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - jmill 01:30 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| this is precisely why i like caribbean fiction. books i've read tend to take snippets of time and present them without tying off the ending. I love going in to shows not knowing the ending, wondering 'where do they go now?' i've never seen BOMC so this could be wonderful for me if I can accept it as is. | |
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| Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | dramedy 02:58 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - jmill 01:30 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| After she goes in the drug store, the musical should end. He should have written one final number for the three of them. She questioning if she made the right choice--take care of the kids or travel the world and Naples with the photographer, her husband wondering what happened that weekend but afraid to ask and possibly lose her, the photographer singing he always loved her and no one else and carried her picture with him until he died--looked at before dying. It could have been a very powerful closing song for all three with backup chorus and very satisfying ending. Instead we have a drawn out ending showing us the kids are successful--who cares, her husband growing old and dying--don't need to see it and the photographer retiring and asking about a phone call. Just a very boring ending to what could have been a really fine musical. Maybe we need a bridges 2.0 like Scarlett pimpernel. They really need to change the ending if the want regional productions. This won't get a national tour and probably not a London production at this point. | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | tpdc 08:22 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - dramedy 02:58 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| You keep writing this but you completely miss what the show is about with this suggestion. Just from a showbiz perspective it's a bad idea as it would rob the star of her final number and Pasquale of his 11:00 number which got a very strong response from the audience when I saw it. A number like It All Fades Away doesn't ruin the end of the show. | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 04:47 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - dramedy 02:58 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| Another advantage of doing it the way you suggest, dramedy, is that the roles of Francesca's children could have been cast with actors who either are or look like teenagers, rather than with actors who really don't look like teenagers because they also have to play those characters as middle-aged. (In the movie, there were two sets of actors for the children when they were young and when they were much older.) | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | Ann 03:20 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - dramedy 02:58 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| I think the point being made may be that she chose her family over running away, so how the family turned out is important. She was there for all those steps in the lives of her husband and children. I felt the ending went on a little long, but I didn't find it boring and it does fit with the rest of the show - I can't see how the ending would prohibit regional, touring and other productions. | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | Chromolume 09:07 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - Ann 03:20 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| I can't see how the ending would prohibit regional, touring and other productions. Agreed. I found that prediction a bit odd too. | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | Kaoru 06:22 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - Ann 03:20 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| I wasn't interested at all how the children turned out. And that's because, as I wrote before, the children don't seem like teenagers so that Kelli looked like their sister, not mother, so I really didn't feel that Francesca's decision to stay was organic or real. If I could have seen the strong bonding between the kids and the mother, I might want to see the current ending. | |
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| re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler | |
| Posted by: | Ann 06:43 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Where rocky is saved by the last 20 minutes, bridges is ruined. Spoiler - Kaoru 06:22 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| Look like it or not (and I agree they look older, but not contemporaries of O'hara, in my opinion), I knew the characters were teenagers and she was their mother. If you're not willing or able to accept that, I guess none of it would make sense. I don't know how her decision to stay wasn't real - she stayed. She stayed because of her children and her husband - whether they had a strong bond or not. | |
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| re: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY | |
| Posted by: | enoch10 01:50 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - jmill 01:30 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| >> On the one hand, the new musical has a gentle, haunting beauty, an often gorgeous score, and two terrific lead performances. Yet, while it was ultimately moving, it failed to provide the emotional wallop you would expect from this story. In total, for me, the show's strengths outweighed the shortcomings, and I found much that was beautiful and admirable in BRIDGES. BRIDGES intentionally makes no attempt to be a rousing, exciting show. It concentrates on telling an intimate, simple, and romantic story that builds slowly but eventually is engrossing, with some real dramatic tension. i haven't seen BRIDGES yet - not sure i will - but when i read this i thought of FAR FROM HEAVEN. did you by any chance see that as well? i was struck by "makes no attempt to be a rousing, exciting show". i felt the same thing about FAR FROM HEAVEN -not in a necessarily bad way. it was an intimate little chamber piece and didn't try to be anything else. if you'd seen both i'm wondering if you had the same kind of reaction to both shows. would you say they're similar in the kind of emotional response they elicit? | |
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| re: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY | |
| Posted by: | jmill 02:24 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - enoch10 01:50 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| I did see FAR FROM HEAVEN and, yes, there are definite similarities, especially in the areas you point out. I had more reservations about the FAR FROM HEAVEN score, but the show ultimately proved to be moving, and even powerful for me. I went back to see it a second time and appreciated it more - maybe the same would happen if I see BRIDGES again. Like BRIDGES, FFH also reminded me of PIAZZA. I think FFH's concluding scenes were more heartbreaking and satisfying, and it addresses issues that BRIDGES, which is clearly a romantic story, would not get into. I prefer the BRIDGES score, and the songs soar in a way that the FAR FROM HEAVEN songs did not generally attempt to do. | |
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| re: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - a P.S. | |
| Posted by: | jmill 02:32 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - jmill 02:24 pm EDT 03/16/14 |
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| When I said "I think FFH's concluding scenes were more heartbreaking and satisfying," I was comparing it to BRIDGES, not to PIAZZA, which, to me, is a true gem that I loved. | |
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