Love is a Fleeting Thing
By Skip Sheffield
Let’s have a forbidden fling. That is the essence of “The
Bridges of Madison County,” playing through May 1 at Kravis Center in West Palm
Beach.
Robert James Waller had a 1992 best-seller about a chance
encounter between a bored Iowa housewife and a photographer from National
Geographic magazine.
A 1995 movie directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and
Meryl Streep became even more popular. The stage musical, with book by Marsha
Norman (Pulitzer Prize-winner for “’night Mother”) and music by Jason Robert
Brown (“Parade”) was mounted in 2014.
Elizabeth Stanley plays the role of Francesca Johnson,
originally from Naples, Italy. It is the summer of 1965 and while her husband
Bud (Cullin R. Titmas) and children are away at the Indiana State Fair, Robert
Kincaid (Andrew Samonsky) pulls up in his pickup truck. Robert has located six
of the seven covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa.. He asks Francesca if she knows
where the seventh one, called Roseman Bridge, is. Francesca volunteers to show
Robert where the bridge is. Later she invites him in for a home-cooked dinner.
So begins a four-day fling that will be the romance of Francesca’s life.
Elizabeth Stanley is a marvelous operatic soprano. Andrew
Samonsky is a worthy tenor and super good-looking guy. The two actors blend
convincingly. Mary Callanan provides nice comic relief as snoopy neighbor
Marge.
If you have ever had the advantage of a brief fling with
someone who will stick with you forever, you will relate to “The Bridges of
Madison County.” If you have not, you can still fanaticize. Love is fleeting
but art is long.
Tickets start at $27. Call 561-832-7469 or go to www.kravis.org.
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