Jessica Wagner: 'Gorgeous contralto' as Patsy Cline

Remember Patsy Cline? How about The Jordanaires, Elvis Presley's backup group? Or remember when radio stations featured live, sung-through commercials on air?!

I sure don't.

With A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline, Bristol Riverside stages its second Cline-themed show in just as many years (following last year's hit, Always. . .Patsy Cline). The company must know its audience, which packed the house on a rainy Friday night to hear Jessica Wagner once again rattle off two dozen of Cline's hits.

Dean Regan's 1991 show provides little dramatic structure and less conceit. Set in 1963 at WINC radio station in Cline's hometown of Winchester, Va., DJ Little Big Man (Danny Vaccaro) kicks off a retrospective of Cline's music in anticipation of her forthcoming album. A quartet of polished young singers provide in-studio backup while also singing advertisements for Ajax detergent and Mr. Clean. The four men later double as The Jordanaires (in order: Jared Calhoun, Nate Golden, Christopher J. Perugini and Sean C. White), when Act Two re-enacts concerts in Vegas, Carnegie Hall and the Grand Ole Opry.

Like I said, little artifice interferes with those who bought seats just to hear Wagner's gorgeous contralto, soft twang and tender warble wander vocally through these numbers. Linda B. Stockton's costumes dress Wagner appropriately to each venue; high-heeled cowboy boots and rodeo attire for the radio appearances, soft-hued evening gowns for the casinos and Carnegie. A rocking five-piece band led by University of the Arts professor Charles Gilbert dazzles throughout.

By no means did Robert Holin's set resemble the locales, but the production shook this crowd at Bristol. During the Vegas scenes, Vacarro donned a wig and dressed as a lounge lizard comic, entertaining the audience with intentionally dated humor (some fat jokes, some Henny Youngmanesque wife lines), only one of which caused me to smirk, but got bellyfuls of laughs from the audience.

And to Wagner's renditions of Cline's hits, I saw tears and shudders, witnessed hands clenched tight, heard sighs and sobs, and saw row after row of smiles.

Nostalgia, while often an ache, here acted as an opioid. This audience - no audience - can go back to the place where Cline's music held sway, but I refuse to harass them for longing for the landscape of their youth, the memories they forged, or their love for any singer who moved their young hearts.

Especially since over two productions in two years, Wagner's sweet singing has turned me into a fan. Not of the era, but of the music, and now I ache a little for one more performer to pull at my heartstrings.

A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline. Presented through October 16 at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol. Tickets start at $33. Information brtstage.org or 215-785-0100