It’s difficult to write about Third Avenue’s new Onstage Playhouse musical “Always… Patsy Cline” without using a string of superlatives. What does it say about a play when as soon as it ends there is a line of people trying to buy tickets for another performance?

The story line is thin and would seem like just a pretext to parade great songs across the stage if it were not for the fact that the story is true.

Susan Bray plays Louise Seger and Debbie David plays Patsy Cline.  Seger becomes enamored with Cline’s voice when she hears it on the radio.  Later, Seger goes to Houston to hear Cline perform and has the opportunity to meet her, and by odd chance, bring her home for coffee bacon, eggs, and woman talk.

The relationship evolves into a friendship and the two exchange letters until Cline’s early death in a plane crash.

Seger is the perfect foil for Cline, her optimism and humor play well and undermine the sense of impending doom.

Like Seger, the audience is quickly converted to fans—fans of Debbie David when she releases her big, beautiful voice and saturates the audience with well-known tunes like “Crazy,” “ Walkin’ After Midnight,” “If You’ve Got Leavin’ on Your Mind.” The audience is so in sync with David that when her voice catches in the middle of a note, it catches in the throat of everyone.

And what can be said of the Bodacious Bobcats–the piano, pedal steel guitar, trombone, guitar, bass, fiddle and drum players who animate the room with honky-tonk tunes?  The Bobcats, their Schlitz bottles and cowboy get ups, perfectly create the sensation of sitting in some honky tonk bar, so much so that feet started tapping, hands started clapping– and on one particular Sunday, long-time Chula Vista resident Jerry Thomas even leapt to his feet at the invitation of Seger and danced across the wood plank floor to the bodacious tunes of the band.

The play runs through July 26.