Affair of the heart: Adobe Theater brings 'The Bridges of Madison County' to life

In “The Bridges of Madison County,” you hear both the heady hope of liberation and the hopeless acceptance of captivity.

The Adobe Theater is staging the musical version of the 1992 bestselling book and 1995 movie beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 19.

“It combines the best of the book and the movie and adds this gorgeous score to it,” said director Pete Parkin.

The book’s hero, a roving photographer named Robert, walks into the life of the comfortably married, if vaguely dissatisfied, Francesca and leaves her shaken, stirred and forever changed.

“She is a war bride from World War II,” Parkin said. “She met a G.I. Her city Naples was trashed completely. Her fiance says, ‘Come to Iowa.’ ”

Francesca is a habit-numbed woman of a certain age, married to a good but boring man, Bud, and dimly aware that life hasn’t turned out the way she hoped.

One day, her husband takes their two children and a prize cow to the state fair, leaving her alone. When ruggedly handsome, National Geographic photographer, Robert, pulls into her driveway seeking directions for Madison County’s famous covered bridges, those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca’s life.

“One thing leads to another and they have a crazy, wild affair for four days,” Parkin said.

“She can’t bear to leave her family,” he added. “It changes both their lives.”

Bringing a 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Score and Best Orchestrations to the Adobe comes with some entanglements, namely, the problem of space, Parkin said.

“It’s challenging on this stage,” he acknowledged. “There’s a lot going on. Once we put up a seven-piece orchestra on stage left, there’s not room to move scenery from that way — especially the bed.”

It was the music that drew Parkin to the play.

“It’s almost like a mini-opera,” he said of Jason Robert Brown’s score. “It’s gorgeous; it’s not just the pop stuff.”