Often referred to as the “dessert” of the season, this year’s closing show at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival is none other than the toe-tapping musical “Always… Patsy Cline”. Featuring 27 of Cline’s hits, the show details the real-life friendship between country superstar Patsy Cline and electrician and housewife Louise Seger.
Despite playing the role of Patsy Cline four times in the past 11 years, Christina Rose Hall is discovering new facets of the character while keeping one thing at the forefront of her mind: honoring Patsy Cline’s legacy.
“I do feel very much the honor, as well as the need, to try to emulate her sound,” Hall said. “There is no sounding just like Patsy, because she’s one of a kind, truly. But I do take that job very seriously, I really try to honor what she originated.”
Hall said she fell in love with Cline’s music as a child due to the fact that the country star’s music was what her “family could agree to listen to multi-generationally when [they] all got together,” allowing her to understand “the emotional landscape that she’s [Patsy Cline] able to paint.”
Female friendship and the idea of finding a sort of sisterhood in a friend is at the heart of what “Always… Patsy Cline” is about — a message that is deeply impactful for Hall.
“The story we’re telling, it’s about her [Patsy’s] friendship with someone, a fan, who she met, and they connected, and they remained friends the rest of Patsy’s life,” Hall said. “That’s the thing that I get most excited about, is this, this love story between platonic friends, between women who see themselves in each other.”
Featuring blinged-out cowgirl getups and 27 iconic songs such as “Crazy” and “Walkin After Midnight”, there are many standout moments from the show to choose from. However, for Hall, some of the most special parts of the show are the more intimate moments where Cline gets to just exist as a person — not necessarily a performer.
“What I really love is the moments where Patsy actually gets to sit down at the kitchen table with Louise and just be a person,” Hall said. “Even the moments where Patsy is in solitude, she’s singing, but when she thinks she’s not being observed. Just toying with the difference of that sound, what she sounds like when it’s just for her, versus what she sounds like when it’s for a room full of wonderful people.”
The tight-knit bond between Patsy Cline and Louise Seger is mirrored by the friendship of Hall and co-star Harmony France whom Hall met in Chicago after being in multiple audition rooms together.
After establishing Firebrand Theater, a feminist musical theater company, France invited Hall to act alongside her in a 2019 production of “Always… Patsy Cline”.
“In the very wild style of true us, in the past, [we] would switch roles every night …We learned how to have each other’s backs in a very real way on stage, through that process,” Hall said. “The chance to get to step back into these boots and share this story of love and friendship with someone who I love and do indeed consider my dear friend is a true joy …”
As Patsy Cline’s life was cut tragically short when she was only 30 years old, Hall highlighted the significance of respecting and doing justice to Cline’s legacy on stage.
“When I started doing this [role] I was the age Patsy was when she passed,” Hall said. “Now I’ve had the opportunity, the gift, of living a decade longer than she has. I feel the importance and respect for bringing my own journey to the role. Patsy — she is the voice of heartbreak as far as my brain is concerned, the way she breaks her voice with a yodel is like the sound of a heart breaking.”
Don’t “fall to pieces” tickets for “Always… Patsy Cline” at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival will be available until Sept. 29. Dust off your cowgirl boots, hop on this “honky tonk merry-go-round” and witness some “crazy” vocal talent.
