A CLOSER WALK WITH PATSY CLINE
Playing at:	Stagewest
Plays until:	September 9, 2007
Reviewed by:	Louis B.
Official website:	www.stagewestcalgary.com
	FULL REVIEW
User ratings:	(No Ratings Yet)  Loading …

Fans of country music legend Patsy Cline would be crazy to miss Stage West’s A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline.

It features a dynamite performance from Devra Straker as the first real female superstar of country music.

Straker doesn’t quite have Cline’s voice but then nobody does. Still that doesn’t hurt her performance one iota because Straker has an incredible vocal style of her own.

It’s a powerful clear voice that allows Straker to deliver show-stopping renditions of such Cline classics as Walkin’ After Midnight, Blue Moon of Kentucky and Always.

Straker comes closest to replicating Cline’s combination of twang, blues, honky tonk and soul when she sings I Fall to Pieces and She’s Got You but she’s not nearly as successful with Crazy or Back in Baby’s Arms that require the slight vibrato that characterized Cline’s style.

If only Dean Regan’s tribute was a strong as Staker’s performance, Stage West would have a show to dazzle and not just entertain.

Regan’s script doesn’t really tell us much about Cline and especially why her voice was fraught with such emotion and even pain.

When Cline sang about cheating men and broken hearts she knew the consequences first hand.

For the record, Cline’s second husband Charlie Dick was indeed the love of her life but he was also an abusive alcoholic.

Imagine how much more powerful a song like Crazy becomes laced with this knowledge.

The show is essentially a one-woman act with the multi-talented Aaron Walpole playing the narrator, a disc jockey known as Little Big Man.

Anyone who caught Walpole in Stage West’s Canadian Explosion knows this man can sing but here he’s reduced to telling jokes and singing a Mr. Clean radio jingle.

The same is true of Paula MacNeill and Keith White who support Straker as Cline’s back-up singers.

It would have been great to have MacNeill zoom in at least once as Patsy’s friend Loretta Lynn and the men tackle her mentors Willie Nelson and Hank Williams.

Director Martin Fishman stages Cline’s famous Carnegie Hall concert with both humour and sincerity. He makes certain the show moves at a impressive clip zipping from one song to another.

Once again Stage West has assembled a most impressive group of musicians to ensure that the music receives stellar treatment, this time under the musical direction of Brent Rock.

Brian Craik’s costumes are, without question, a highlight of the production.

Stage West’s A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline is a five-star performance in a two-star vehicle but it still makes it a fine night out of nostalgia.

.