Review: “Always … Patsy Cline” a treat

Not much story, even less scenery, but a heap of nostalgic hits served up with some laughs.

That's “Always … Patsy Cline,” a country-tinged musical revue that opened Wednesday on the Omaha Community Playhouse main stage. Director Susan Baer Collins has revived the 2007 playhouse hit with the same killer cast and almost identical backup musicians.

And though the show is fairly static — a six-piece band and vocal quartet don't move much — it's still highly entertaining because its cast of two has talent to spare.

Erika Zadina uncannily mimics Cline's scoops, yodels, vocal catches and sweeping long notes in hit after hit from the storied country singer's career, which lasted from the mid-1950s until she died in a 1963 plane crash at age 30.

She even gets Cline's body English right, the way she leaned back to belt out the emotional peak of a torch song or used sweeping hand gestures to accent her phrasing.

Judy Radcliff, meanwhile, has a comic-relief heyday as Louise Seger, a real-life rabid fan from Houston who befriended Cline in the final years of Cline's life.

The role is little more than a way to fill time and provide a little background while Zadina changes costumes. But in Rad cliff's hands, it's a hoot and a half as she lays the corn pone on thick. Louise's twangy accent, colorful turns of phrase (“Oh, fer cryin' in a buckit”) and spirited physical comedy (a bump-and-grind impression of driving her pink Pontiac) had a Tuesday preview crowd of about 200 eating out of her hand, when they weren't cheering Zadina's vocal hit parade.

But it's clearly Zadina who bears the heavier burden here, since 27 songs fill far more time than the truncated script. Louise joins in on only two tunes. Radcliff and Zadina's harmonies are sublime on the lively “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” making you wish for more.

Since Cline was a crooner who had crossover pop hits like “Sweet Dreams,” “Crazy” and “She's Got You,” Zadina gets a chance to mix it up vocally, impressing as she hops from boogie-woogie to ballads, honky-tonk to lullabies.

While her pitch infrequently dipped a shade under, particularly early on (“I Fall to Pieces”), and lower notes sometimes faded (“You Belong to Me”), Zadina's Cline impression was more often dead-on — awesome, actually, on hits like “If You've Got Leavin' on Your Mind” and “Three Cigarettes in the Ashtray.”

The playhouse has beefed up the sound system to provide a slight echo effect, and Zadina's backup musicians could scarcely be hotter. Music director Keith Hart, on piano, plus drummer Vince Krysl, bassist Steve Gomez, guitarist Jeff Scheffler, fiddler Jill Van Horn and George Laughrey, on steel guitar, rocked all night long.

As the Jordanaires, Michael Bristol, Bob Kropp, Rick Tritz and Nelson Lampe provide a silky blend behind most of Patsy's hits.

If the music isn't nostalgic enough, Lynne Ridge's period costumes should bring back a flood of memories for listeners of a certain age.

For the rest, Zadina and Radcliff offer more than enough entertainment to make two hours fly.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com