July 17, 1998
Cover Story:
Something about Patsy
By BILL DeYOUNG
Sun entertainment editorOne of the simplest plays ever mounted by the Hippodrome State Theatre, last year's "Always ... Patsy Cline," perhaps surprisingly, became one of its most successful.
It's surprising because the show is little more than a series of songs made famous by the doomed country music diva, sung by the New York stage actress Jessie Janet Richards in a parade of costumes, from denim to glitter, to the accompaniment of a live-on-stage four-member band. The stage is loud but not flashy.
Ted Swindley's loose script is narrated by Louise Seger, a honky-tonk-going housewife who befriends Cline and subsequently becomes her pal and confidante; Louise talks, Patsy sings.
If you go Always ... Patsy Cline
WHERE: Hippodrome State Theatre, 25 SE 2nd Pl.
WHEN: Tuesdays-Sundays, through Aug. 2
TICKETS: $12-$25The relationship between these women is the vessel in which "Always ... Patsy Cline" is contained, and Richards' friendship with Lauren Caldwell, the Hippodrome's "director who acts," is one of the reasons it's all so believable onstage.
Not long after Richards left Gainesville and Patsy to return to her husband and kids in Conecticut, she and Caldwell began cooking up plans to co-direct the musical revue "Beehive," which they did most successfully this spring, at the Hippodrome. Director Mary Hausch agreed to do it again.
The stars being in the right alignment and all, leaving Patsy and Louise in the past just seemed ... well, crazy.
While you were working on 'Beehive,' were you running around backstage singing Patsy Cline songs under your breath?
Richards: Actually no, because we were so immersed in 'Beehive,' it was just all consuming. But once I got back home, when the show was up and running here, I went 'Oh, my God, I'm doing Patsy in a couple of weeks!' That's when the panic starts to set in.
Lauren, you have most of the dialogue. How much re-visiting of the script did you have to do? Did it all come back?
Caldwell: We counted 16 months since we had touched it. And we went into rehearsal on Monday and opened it on Friday. I'd like to say I just picked up the script on Monday, but I didn't. I started weeks before, re-looking at it. I had to. It didn't come that quickly; I had to spend some time with it.
How about for you, Jessie?
Richards: Well, you always remember the melodies, because Patsy's the best, and these are the best songs. But there are 23 of them in the show, so I had to re-visit lyrics. And just trying to remember the sequence of things: What comes here? When do I change clothes? Where do I go? We had also done the show in Jacksonville and Ocala, so a lot of our blocking had to be re-adjusted for those houses as well. You remember just enough to confuse you completely. It's almost easier to start from scratch.
It's a whole different way of looking at the show. Because we didn't want it to be exactly the same as last time. I mean, you always want the performance to be better.
So what did you change?
Caldwell: I think what we did, instead of quote-unquote change, we textured. We colored. We said 'What if we did this here?' We didn't change the relationship.
Richards: We thought 'You know, the folks really liked this moment. Maybe we could build on that particular section.' And thank you, audience: We took what they gave us to work with, and built on that.
Caldwell: Mary said 'OK, girls, we've got two choices: We can keep it the same or we can look at it fresh.' And we said 'Let's go there.'
Richards: She's wonderful that way. She let us play and find what works. That's a good director, who knows how let folks do what they do best.
Is Louise a real person?
Caldwell: Absolutely, and she's still alive. She's seen a couple of portrayals of Louise, and one of the things she said was that she really didn't appreciate some of the interpretions of the character, that she saw herself more as a 'really with-it Cybill Shepherd' when she was young.
You can play her as somebody really frumpy, or as somebody who's got the guts to walk up to a woman she thinks is cool and say 'Not only are we going to have a couple of Shlitzes together, but you're going to come over to my house, and we'll cook dinner, and we'll talk all night.' To me, that takes a lot of courage.
Could you find Louise in the script, or did you have to make her up?
Cauldwell: I have to admit no, I do not think that Mr. Swindley, in terms of text, helps at all. The key to it is you must make it your own. I grew up in Texas, and Patsy Cline is an icon in that state, a household word. So it wasn't hard for me to understand the importance of what she brought, musically, to our world. That was an easy start.
At the end of the show, there's a moment between Louise and Patsy, and I glance at that neon with her name up there, and I find it very touching. I think if audiences can make that real life connection between Louise and Patsy, they're able to feel the loss at the end.
One of the things that Jessie and I feel very successful at is developing that relationship onstage without a very well-written, structured script. There, to me, is the key to this show.
Jessie, are there high points for you during the evening?
Richards: There's moments in the show when I come offstage and think, OK, you can't cry now. Stop crying, you can't sing if you're crying. 'Crazy' blows me away almost every night. I think about her relationship with her husband Charlie, and it really moves my heart. And 'Just a Closer Walk With Thee.' And at the end of the show, I get to look at the audiences' faces, and then over at Louise, and sing 'True Love.'
Anybody, not just Patsy fans, if you've ever had a dear friend or someone close, anybody can relate to those feelings. It transcends age, sex, race, whatever. It's just incredibly moving, and it's very hard to keep it together during those times.
