Always… Patsy Cline
Garden Theatre, Winter Garden, Florida • May 8, 2024
Directed by Katrina Ploof
Starring Keisha Gill McNair, Lucy Carney, Tay Anderson
by Carl F. Gauze
Can women sing and write Country? That wasn’t clear for a long time, and it took post-war American radio for us to discover and enjoy Patsy Cline’s music.
Born in rural Virginia, she learned music the way so many do: by singing in church. And while that music is all about angels and salvation, the real money is in sin, ill-aimed lust, and hard drinking. This is the music America wants to hear, and in the post-war United States, there was a media revolution that grabbed Patsy’s brand of sin and made her famous. Her love life was rocky, her handler slimy, but her voice was angelic. It’s the story of everyone in entertainment, and it’s particularly poignant, as Patsy, like so many other stars, died in an airplane crash on the way to her next gig.
That’s the path we follow tonight in the this not-quite one-person show. Keisha Gill McNair dominates the event, and she does all the muscle work of singing in a country outfit. All the hits are here in one form or another: “I Fall to Pieces,” “Lovesick Blues,” and “Crazy.” These songs still grab you by the suspenders and make you cry with her. As the pressures of stardom piled up, those around Cline were mainly interested in exploitation while her musical iron glowed red hot. But death stalks success, and we can all list any number of rising pop stars killed by aviation, from Jim Croce to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Patsy died, but she went out like a pop star, auguring in from 30 thousand feet. It hurts, but not for long. And this is her legacy: an almost one-woman show that wraps it all up with a neat little ribbon on top.
This show plays through May 19, 2024, at Garden Theatre.
