Date: Fri 03-Sep-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Cline-Cabaret-Stern

Full Text:

THEATRE REVIEW: As Always "Patsy Cline" Offers Perfection For Cabaret

Audiences

(with cut)

By Julie Stern

BRIDGEPORT -- If Johnny Cash was famous for "walking the line," you might say

Patsy Cline straddled it -- in the sense that the body of her work transcends

the limits of country music and crosses over into pop. Always... Patsy Cline,

the exciting new production at Downtown Cabaret Theatre, conveys this through

the 26 songs that make up the score of this musical retrospective.

From "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" and "Your Cheatin' Heart" to

"You Belong to Me" and "True Love," this tribute to the little girl from

Virginia who finally made her breakthrough on the Arthur Godfrey show with

"Walkin' After Midnight" is a trip down memory lane to anyone who listened to

the radio between 1957 and 1963, when Patsy was killed in a plane crash at age

30.

Written, and originally directed, by Ted Swindley, the show is based on the

true story of a Houston housewife named Louise Seger who had her ultimate

fantasy come true when she went to her first live concert as a devoted fan of

her favorite singer and got to make friends with the star in 1961.

Before the show and during the intermission, Patsy sat at Louise's table.

Afterwards she accepted Louise's invitation to come to her house for bacon and

eggs. The two women sat and talked for hours -- about their children, their

rocky love lives and the music, until they were like sisters, or best pals.

They never saw each other again, but Patsy wrote and called Louise regularly

over the next two years until her death.

It is Louise's reminiscences that structure the show in Bridgeport. Against

the background of a six-piece orchestra, Louise narrates and re-lives for the

audience the most important event of her life beginning with the moment she

hears Patsy's voice on the Arthur Godfrey show as she is washing the breakfast

dishes, through the 1961 concert, culminating with the radio news flash that

informs her of the accident.

Misty Rowe plays the comic role of the ditzy but spirited Louise with broad

pizazz. As Patsy, Cindy Summers belts out the songs and conveys the shadowed

character of the singer who endured poverty, pain and loneliness but had the

pride that came of belief in herself and what she was doing. It is the weight

of these experiences that give her music the emotional depth and power that

made the real Patsy so wildly successful with audiences.

Every seat in the house was taken when we saw the show last Sunday during

opening weekend, and the rapt attention on the faces of the crowd showed they

all still remembered what Patsy Cline and her songs meant to them 35 years

later.

A fleeting thought went through my mind at the time. Thirty-five years from

now, would a retrospective of Limp Bizkit evoke the same mix of joy and

nostalgia in a comparable audience? Don't think so.

This is a typical Bridgeport Cabaret production, directed and performed to

perfection. Go see it.

(Performances of Always... Patsy Cline continue through October 31. Curtain is

Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 5:30 and 8:30, and Sunday at 5:30. Call the

Cabaret box office, 576-1636, for ticket information or reservations.)