By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
As soon as Chelsie Cree opens her mouth to start singing the story of her character Francesca, the listener is assured that the Perrysburg Musical Theatre made the perfect choice in casting her as the lead in “The Bridges of Madison County.”
Cree is at the center of this story of a torrid affair between Francesca, an Italian war bride now languishing in a farmhouse in Iowa, and a rootless photo journalist Robert Kincaid (Jordan Benavente).
Cree has a strong, clear voice with crisp articulation that communicates both the words of the lyrics and the powerful emotions of the music. And the music is what makes this musical soar.
The Perrysburg Muscal Theatre will stage “The Bridges of Madison County,” a musical adaptation of the best selling book and later film, Friday, Jan. 31 and Saturday Feb. 1 at 7p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 2 at 2 p.m. at the Owens Community College Center for Performing and Fine Arts. Tickets are available online at www.perrysburgmusicaltheatre.org.
The Jason Robert Brown’s lyrics and melodies cut to the heart of a tale of this ill-fated love. Much of the music for the two lovers is operatic in character fitting given Francesca’s Italian heritage.
The music for the other characters mines popular genres — gospel, folk, rock and the blues. This sets Francesca and Robert on a different plane, living at heights ultimately they can’t sustain.
When Francesca makes her entrance she is relating in “To Build a Home” how she came to this small Iowa farming town with a handsome soldier who’s now a gruff, overworked husband Bud Johnson (Craig Cousino) and the father of their two teenage children — the anxious Carolyn (Katie Trumbull) and the dissatisfied Michael (Collin Smith).
We meet them as they bicker on their way out the door to a national competition in Indianapolis where Carolyn will show her prized steer “Stevie.”
Bud has a hard time managing either of them, and having to manage them together already has him fuming.
No wonder Francesca is happy to stay behind at home, and not have to cook, pick up or do laundry for this unpleasant trio.
Not that in this small town, she’d ever be truly alone. There’s friends and neighbors. Marge (Aeryn Williams) and Charlie (Chuck Kiskaddon) dwell well within snooping distance.
Director Samantha Henry evokes this sense of community by having the other members of the cast seated on stage as the action unfolds. The simple and effective set by Dave Bermudez uses movable frames that when separate form the Johnsons’ and Charlie and Marge’s houses and when combined form the Roseman covered bridge. They are moved by the cast members in a theatrical bit of house raising.
Being rural folks in a small close knit community, they are fascinated and wary by this photographer dispatched by the National Geographic to document those titular bridges.
He needs help locating the seventh bridge on his list and that’s what leads him to drive up the Johnson’s driveway and make Francesca’s break from her family far more fraught with passion and possibility.
Indeed, will what transpires in those four days lead to a greater break?
Meanwhile, Marge has them in her binoculars. There’s a lot of envy in her spying.
Benavente brings out Robert’s shyness and reserve. He is a man, he claims, by trade an outsider. He drops into places where others have put down roots and made connections to capture images before drifting off to the next assignment.
No wonder Clint Eastwood, who produced the movie version of this story, was attracted to this character.
Cree’s Francesca is a woman whose brio has been muted by the demands of her circumstances. She has realized too late that the life of a farm wife does not fulfill her. She’s learned to keep her desires, such as her love of drawing, hidden.
Now, I must say, I find this depiction of rural life more than a tad stereotypical and one-dimensional, but that complaint should have been taken up with the late writer of the stories, not those charged with telling it. The cast does a marvelous job bringing the tale to life.
Jason Robert Brown’s music and lyrics are the heart blood of this telling. Jen Braun as Robert’s wife Marian offers a wonderful reflection on their relationship and his personality in the pop folk ballad “Another Life.” And Charlie and Marge each get a revelatory solo.
Marian croons the bluesy jazz number “Get Closer” and at the end, Charlie bursts forth with the gospel song “When I’m Gone.”
Marsha Norman, who wrote the book, left plenty of room for the music. The quality of the songs and their performances accounts for how highly entertaining this show is.
The band’s placement speaks to that. The small string orchestra, led by music director Logan Maccariella, is positioned at the back of the stage, behind by a low fence. They become part of the landscape as much as their music creates the soundscape both for the setting and the internal lives of the characters, especially Francesca and Robert.
Their emotions, exposed in song, can’t help but stir the hearts of those in the audience.
