‘Madison County’ composer believes in musical despite Broadway flop
Composer Jason Robert Brown has three Tony Awards.
Someday, he hopes, he’ll have a Broadway hit.
After all, “The Bridges of Madison County” — for which he won two Tonys, one for his original score and one for his orchestrations — opened in mid-January 2014 and closed four months later. (By contrast, “Book of Mormon” opened in 2011 — and “The Phantom of the Opera” made its Broadway bow in 1988.)
“Ultimately, there are just a lot of shows out there,” Brown says, a touch of resignation in his voice. “But the stuff I do, I’m very proud of.”
He’s prouder still that there’s life beyond Broadway for “The Bridges of Madison County.”
The show’s national tour opens an eight-performance run Tuesday at The Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall.
“We’re honored we can get it out into the world,” Brown says, speaking for himself and such collaborators as Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Marsha Norman (” ‘night, Mother,” “The Secret Garden”) and Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher (currently represented on Broadway by the “Fiddler on the Roof” revival).
“People are hungry for musical theater material that has some depth,” Brown says of the musical inspired by Robert James Waller’s best-seller, about the brief but life-altering love affair between a National Geographic photographer and an Italian-American housewife in 1965 Iowa.
Although Brown knew of Waller’s book, he “wasn’t a fan,” he acknowledges during a telephone interview, noting that when it was published in 1992, “I was a straight, 25-year-old boy living in Manhattan” and the book held no appeal for him. (He’s 45 now.)
Besides, “my mother’s an English teacher — and she threatened to disown me,” he jokes, citing the book’s purple mountains of prose.
Brown even managed to miss the 1995 movie version, which teamed Meryl Streep (in an inevitavbly Oscar-nominated performance) and Clint Eastwood, who also directed.
But after working on two “big comedies and very broad pieces” — one of which was another flop, “Honeymoon in Vegas” — Brown was looking for something different than “all these crazy comedies,” a different kind of project with “big music and big singing.”
He talked with Norman, a collaborator on a previous children’s project, suggesting ” ‘Let’s look for something.’ ” When Waller brought up “Bridges” as a Broadway possibility, Brown told Norman, ” ‘This is exactly what we’re looking for.’ “
For one thing, Norman “always writes about the trapped girl,” Brown says — a description that definitely suits leading lady Francesca (who’s played on tour by Elizabeth Stanley).
And because “I always write about the outsider,” the composer adds, “the character of Robert spoke to me,” given his sense of “not belonging anywhere.”
Adapting a book that’s “very dense, but very short” — especially one that “doesn’t have a lot of detail” — made the stage creators’ task easier, Brown suggests.
That’s because “there was a lot of room to fill in and make this story, and these characters, our own,” he explains. Unlike some screen-to-stage adaptations where “everyone knows every line and gesture and all you can do is make a pale imitation.”
Although “some of those shows are very successful,” Brown acknowledges, they’re not for him.
“I think the musicals that make the most sense” for him are musicals where “the stakes are very high,” the composer reflects. And “they’re certainly high for these characters.”
That high-stakes emotionality proved a definite draw for performers Elizabeth Stanley and Andrew Samonsky, the tour’s star-crossed Francesca and Robert.
“It’s such a luscious score to sing,” says Stanley, in a telephone interview from the tour’s Dallas stop. She describes Brown’s music as “elevated, not just cheesy pop music.”
And using music “to tell this sweeping romance makes total sense,” Samonsky says in a separate telephone interview.
While some musicals are “big, flashy, song-and-dance extravaganzas,” Samonsky says, “what is special about our show” is “ours is definitely not that. It’s intimate” and “simple in its storytelling. It allows you to dig into the decisions these characters are making.”
The decisions are difficult for the characters — and for the actors bringing those characters to life, Stanley admits.
“By the Sunday night show, I need the day off,” she says.
Adds Samonsky (spoiler alert!), “It’s a lot to lose the love of your life every night — eight times a week. I love the show so much; it’s been very fulfilling artistically. But sometimes twice a day can be draining, so the audience can feel it for the first time.”
Like Brown, Samonsky had never read “Bridges of Madison County” or seen the movie adaptation.
“My first introduction was seeing this show on Broadway,” he recalls. “I truly loved it. I was a teary mess at the end.”
Even those who don’t know (or like) the book or the movie, find this “Bridges” adaptation “very compelling,” according to Samonsky. “It’s definitely not the movie or the book up on stage. We do our own take.”
And that take, in Brown’s view, focuses on one simple question: “What are the things you have committed to versus the things you have dreamed?”
— Read more from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.
