Picture: Roy Tan
Stage and screen actor EDWARD BAKER-DULY will star opposite Jenna Russell in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s eagerly-anticipated UK premiere of the musical version of Robert James Waller’s much-loved novel The Bridges of Madison County, officially opening on 23 July 2019 and running until 14 September.
With music and lyrics by triple Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years, Honeymoon in Vegas) and a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman (The Secret Garden, The Color Purple), the new staging is by multi-award-winning director Trevor Nunn.
Russell plays the central role of Italian war bride Francesca whose quiet family life in the American Midwest is changed forever by a chance meeting. Baker-Duly (Rookery Nook at the Menier, The King and I, The Wizard Of Oz, Gone With the Wind, South Pacific, West Side Story and Salad Days, all in the West End) will play Robert, the National Geographic photographer who meets Francesca while on assignment filming bridges in the area.
Here, Edward Baker-Duly is in conversation with Musical Theatre Review’s Tal Fox…
So how does it feel to be involved in the UK premiere of the show?
Oh, it’s hugely exciting. I came across Bridges of Madison County when I worked with Kelli O’Hara on The King and I on Broadway and she had appeared in the New York production. I remember thinking it would be fantastic to be involved in [the show] at some stage if the option ever came up, and it’s crazy how things work out. This opportunity came up and here I am. As I said, I couldn’t be more excited.
Jenna Russell and Edward Baker-Duly in rehearsal for The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Picture: Johan Persson
It’s quite an American story, so do you think British audiences will be able to connect to it?
Yes, it’s an American story because it’s set in the midwest, but essentially I think the root of the story is universal. It’s about two people meeting up by a chance. Is it chance, is it destiny? Both looking for things in their life in their own ways and, importantly, it’s a story of two older people meeting up. You know, not the usual love story, this is one where a lot of life has been lived already and these two people find each other and it develops from there.
It’s the first time the musical has come here, so maybe British audiences may be less familiar with it. Can you tell me a bit more about the show?
More than anything, it is really about the experiences that these two people have, the journey that they’ve been on in their lives, and the journey that they are hoping that they will be able to continue, to follow that dream. I think that’s the beauty of the piece.
And it’s quite different, as you say, to have something that kind of centres around older characters and older romance.
Absolutely. Francesca has had her family and I suppose is thinking about the rest of her life. She hasn’t really found what she is looking for.
There’s something out there, particularly for Robert Kincaid, the character I’m playing. Even though he has been married and he’s divorced, he just wasn’t enough, I think, for his wife, his first wife. He leads quite a selfish life, an introspective life, because he’s looking at the world through the lens of a camera. It’s a very personal vocation, as it were. And he’s always on the move. He just doesn’t fit in anywhere.
And I think equally one could say the same thing for Francesca, in a way. That she’s come from Italy, from Naples, after the war, come to a new life to escape the post-war poverty. Yes, she’s married to a great guy, she has children, she has a family. She has all the things that I guess she was looking forward to having, but something isn’t there. It’s nothing like she’s dreamt of as a girl, and she says that. There’s something more to it.
Picture: Johan Persson
What were rehearsals like?
It’s a beautiful score that Jason Robert Brown has written and it’s been very exciting to be working with Trevor Nunn again [Edward worked with Nunn on Gone With the Wind]. I’ve done a couple of shows with him, and Tom Murray, the musical supervisor from America, is extraordinary. So yeah, it’s a great creative team and a great company. I think it’s going to be a great piece.
And I think, unlike the New York production, this is going to be, of course, a very intimate presentation of the piece at the Menier. I think, in a way, that sensitivity will definitely come to the fore. We have been trying to keep it as absolutely honest and real as possible.
As you mentioned, you’ve got Trevor Nunn directing. And obviously, he worked on Fiddler on the Roof, and that’s done really well. Does that kind of make you optimistic for this show? Does it add to the pressure?
Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s great for an actor to have that confidence in one director, because you just feel like everything’s going to be okay. And he’s so very clever and hugely experienced as well. He comes up with such great ideas, the way he sees things, the way he interprets the text, not just the text but the lyrics.
I guess Fiddler on the Roof also started at the Menier and transferred to Broadway. Do you have high hopes then, as well?
Well, you know, one always does, but it’s just one step at a time with this. It’s a beautiful story and it’s a joy to work with Jenna Russell as well. I think the two of us have great chemistry together. And I’m not looking really beyond anywhere other than playing it out, telling the story here.
How does it feel to be returning to the Menier?
The great thing about it is, you strip away all the kind of glitz and glamour of the West End or Broadway or those big theatres and so on. Here, it feels very much like a family. We all feel like we are equal in what we’re contributing towards it. I think that makes for a very healthy creative environment.
Can you tell us a bit more about the music in the show?
As it’s set in Iowa, it has predominately a country sort of feel to it. Certainly, my material does. Francesca’s music, though, has been written with a much more operatic style to it. It’s as if the composer is trying to bring together the two genres in the piece. But it does seems very popular country, to a large degree.
Picture: Roy Tan
Is there a particular standout song for you?
For me, ‘It All Fades Away’ is my sort of big song at the end of the show. And there’s a beautiful duet between the two of us called ‘One Second and a Million Miles’. There’s a lot of good music in the show so it’ll be a feast for people to come and hear.
Is there anything about it you’ve found particularly surprising or unexpected?
I suppose the more we get into the story, how profound the story is. You know, on face value, it’s about two people who meet in the middle of nowhere, each from different backgrounds, and they sort of fall in love, and that’s the end of it. And they have a moment together, one second is what he refers to a lot in ‘A Million Miles’. It’s just that little moment in one’s life. They don’t have – SPOILER ALERT – they don’t have that future together. It’s sort of like they live their whole life in that moment they have when they first meet.
I think the more that we have worked through this in the rehearsal process, the more profound it has become and the more relatable it is. There are moments in one’s life where you meet somebody and, you know, it doesn’t have to be the love of one’s life that you think it’s going to be, but there are these chance meetings that happen a lot, maybe on a train, maybe you bump into somebody and just connect with them, and you enjoy their company and you enjoy talking to them. And if you didn’t have to get off at the next stop, you may continue talking and continue being in that moment with them, and I think that’s hugely interesting.
Is that the kind of message you expect audiences to walk away with?
You know, the thing is, we want people to walk away talking about it, talking about it morally, did they do the right thing? Perhaps they did. They were so perfect together in that short time that they had together. Maybe they should have just been together, but one has a family and wants to remain true to the love of her children. There’s no easy way out of it and I think what we’re trying to achieve is to make it as difficult for the audience to come away knowing it ended the way it should have done or it shouldn’t have done. It should be something that there’s no definitive answer to how this should have gone.
As The Tinman in The Wizard of Oz. Picture: Roy Tan
How much did you know about it before this production? Had you read the books, seen the film?
There was a famous film with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. You know, I still haven’t seen that film. I wanted to get into the rehearsal process first with my mind clear of anything. But I think I’m going to sit down and watch it soon. I believe the film is fantastic. I think the musical is aligned very closely to the film. And by all accounts, it’s a masterpiece, and the relationship between the two of them is quite extraordinary. So I will go back and look at it.
Why should people come to see the show?
Oh, because it’s hugely romantic. The music is beautiful. I think the story is very relatable, you know. It’s about love and I think, gosh, in the climate that we’re living in the world at the moment, we could all do with a healthy dose of love. And that comes in bucketloads here in this piece. So yeah, come and see it.
Edward Baker-Duly’s UK credits include: Noises Off, Anyone Can Whistle, The Lady Vanishes, Copacabana, The Pirates of Penzance, Singin’ in the Rain, The Full Monty, Twelfth Night and The Mikado. He most recently appeared in Kiss Me, Kate at Sheffield Theatres. His US theatre credits include the Broadway production of The King And I and the Off-Broadway production of Peter and the Starcatcher.
Tickets for The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier Chocolate Factory are available HERE.
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