Patsy Cline's real-life friendship with an obsessed fan could have made for compelling drama, but Always... isn't a play so much as Cline's estate cashing in with a greatest-hits compilation sung by a reasonable Cline facsimile. When superfan Louise Seger (Kate Jaeger) professes her love for Cline in the beginning of the play—calling the local radio station incessantly to demand that it play her music, so much so that the exasperated DJs know Seger by name—there's a pointed homosexual subtext to her adoration. But this isn't a play about the glories and/or dysfunctions of fandom: It's about how Seger meets Cline and they quickly and effortlessly become good friends. Um, the end.

Cayman Ilika has a huge, musical-theater voice, but without Cline's wounded-animal need. What Ilika lacks in mimicry—it's unfair to expect anyone to duplicate Cline's singular, mournful wail—she makes up for with over a dozen wardrobe changes and a vivid, let's-put-on-a-honky-tonk-show smile that (fittingly, for Cline) barely conceals sorrow. Always... is a wholesome, bland evening for old people to reminisce about that good, old-fashioned music they don't make anymore. That's all it was written to be.