Now that The Bridges of Madison County has closed on Broadway, its star reflects on why the show didn’t catch on — and what that means for the future of theater.
Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale as Francesca and Robert in The Bridges of Madison County.
Joan Marcus
Kelli O'Hara is no longer singing the stunning "Almost Real" eight times a week now that The Bridges of Madison County has closed, but that doesn't mean she's moved on.
For her portrayal of Francesca Johnson, a dissatisfied Italian-American housewife (a role originated by Meryl Streep in the film) who falls for traveling photographer Robert Kincaid in 1965 Iowa, O'Hara earned her fifth Tony Award nomination.
Of the five times O'Hara has been nominated to date, she has yet to win once.
The show itself, which closed May 18, was snubbed for the coveted Best Musical award, as was star Steven Pasquale, who brought down the house as Robert. But Bridges, which did get a nomination for Jason Robert Brown's original score, found its audience late in its run — and the cast album, aided by O'Hara's nomination, continues to attract new fans.
"I know there were problems. And I know that it wasn't for everybody," O'Hara told BuzzFeed. "But I think there was something about that show that will live on in a certain way, and the recording will help that happen. I'm just really proud that I was a part of it."
The acclaim O'Hara has received for her performance may have to be enough. While the 38-year-old actor, who previously wowed audiences in 2005's The Light in the Piazza, is long overdue for a Tony win, the tides may have turned against her thanks to Bridges' premature closing. The last time the Best Actress in a Musical award went to an actor in a closed show was in 1975 when Angela Lansbury won for a revival of Gypsy.
The question remains why Bridges, one of the standout musicals of the season, failed to connect with audiences and was largely ignored by the Tony Awards. O'Hara, who has experienced both unequivocal hits and more modest successes throughout her Broadway career, can only hazard a guess.
"It's such a question for the ages," she said. "Art is a strange beast. Those of us who do it and create it live in a world where something that feels cathartic and wonderful and artistic to us isn't always what feels that way to the general public. People need art for different reasons."
Francesca reflects on her transgression with Robert.
Joan Marcus
O'Hara's decision to take on the character of Francesca was less complicated. Though she had never seen the 1995 film adaptation of The Bridges of Madison County starring Streep and Clint Eastwood, she had devoured Robert James Waller's best-selling novel as a teenager.
For O'Hara, choosing a role largely depends on what her most recent role was. She was last seen on Broadway in 2012's musical comedy Nice Work If You Can Get It, for which she earned her fourth Tony nomination. O'Hara played Billie Bendix, a Gershwin-singing bootlegger in the lighthearted '20s-set show.
"I look for things based on what came before and what might come after. I try to change it up a little bit," O'Hara said. "It probably seems to some people they're all in the same family, but to me, all my roles have felt very, very different, and that's the most important thing for me — to keep challenging, keep growing. So if I do a comedy one year, I might want to do something serious. If I play an ingénue type, I might want to play more of a strong kind of woman next, or something like that. I just want to hopefully keep surprising myself and other people."
Francesca is indeed far removed from Nice Work's Billie — and from O'Hara's other notable roles, including cock-eyed optimist Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and woefully naïve Clara in The Light in the Piazza. Francesca is a little older and a lot sadder, the reflection of a less-than-perfect life that has fixed her in place.
"When they approached me with it, I knew that I would be ready at this time in my life. I had started my family and I knew that I'd be ready to play the mother and play something of a woman with some experience," said O'Hara. "Of course we play the things that we're right for, that we're well fitted, well-suited to do. And when you get older, you start wanting to play someone with a lot of history. And she has more history and different history than I ever could imagine. I took on that challenge."
Of course, a large part of playing Francesca, an immigrant from Naples, was developing her accent. As O'Hara noted, "In all of these things, a lot more goes into it than probably is actually seen in the work onstage."
In order to find the perfect accent, O'Hara dived into her character's backstory, imagining a woman who came to a small town in Iowa at a time when her cultural difference would have been something to suppress. Her Francesca reflects someone quietly clinging to her past while still struggling to assimilate after 18 years in Madison County.
"I'm a Southern American woman, so it's hard for me to give her less of an affect, less of an, 'Oh, hello, I'm so cheery all the time!' I felt like she would be more reserved and more guarded and more careful," O'Hara said. "It all comes from just trying to know she was, and then her voice kind of came alive out of that."
No comments:
Post a Comment