by Marsha Norman (book) and Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics)
seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 6 August 2019
Trevor Nunn directs this musical based on Robert James Waller's popular novel about an intense brief affair between Francesca (Jenna Russell) an Iowa farm housewife, originally from Naples, and Robert Kincaid (Edward Baker-Duly), a roving free-spirited photographer hired by National Geographic to photograph the celebrated covered wooden bridges of Madison County.
Robert calls at Francesca's home to ask the way to the elusive seventh bridge, on just the day when her husband and two fractious teenage children have departed for the Illinois State Fair. There is an immediate attraction; one thing leads quickly to another; but, at the last, Francesca's family loyalty prevents her from leaving with Robert. By the time, years later, that she might consider herself free - widowed and her children fully grown and establishes - it is too late; the older Robert has died.
