Eleanora Owen (Photo by Doug Engalla)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Odyssey Theater
Through Aug. 30
RECOMMENDED
Eleanora Owen (Photo by Doug Engalla)
Edith Piaf has been the subject of many stage and screen adaptations in the years since her untimely death at age 47. Perhaps her most famous depiction was in the 2007 film, La Vie En Rose, which won Marion Cotillard an Oscar.
Being Piaf — Eleanora Owen’s original solo show directed by her husband, Tim Byron Owen — is yet another entrée into the Piaf oeuvre. The production is a reprise of the one that played at the Odyssey Theatre in 2024. Remounted through this coming weekend, it’s a welcome opportunity to bask in the lore of this legendary singer, and to revel in her many songs, including the immortal “Non, je ne regrette rien (No, I regret nothing)”, a defiant anthem that Piaf introduced shortly before her death.
The stark simplicity of the staging — a mostly bare stage with only a table, a chair, a bottle of wine, and a streetlight—focuses our attention on the performer, a diminutive woman who bears a striking resemblance to her subject. Owens is a charming chanteuse whose sinuous arm movements mirror Piaf’s own dramatic performing style — and she’s a strong vocalist as well (although she has been overmiked by sound designer Christopher Moscatiello — with a voice as strong as Owen’s, the over-amplification seems unnecessary.)
Frequently taking restorative slugs of wine, Owen recounts incidents from Piaf’s past, including her early years in her paternal grandmother’s bordello and her brief but happy period in the circus where her contortionist father performed. Just out of her teens, she was plucked from the streets by nightclub impresario Louis Leplée, who recognized her genius. Leplée’s death in a mob hit by Piaf’s underground associates plunged her early career into scandal. While her career recovered, tragic events — the loss of her only child from meningitis, the death in an airplane crash of Marcel Cerdan, the French middleweight champion and Piaf’s great love — further hastened her decline into alcohol and morphia addiction.
In Owen’s bio-drama, Piaf’s tumultuous history is abbreviated to a fault, with not enough time between songs and the relaying of traumatic events to understand their effect on The Little Sparrow, as she was affectionately called. Told in a rush, it is nonetheless fascinating stuff. And Owen is a galvanic performer who captures the essence of Piaf, a scrappy survivor who may never have conquered her demons but struggled valiantly throughout her star-crossed life.
Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West LA.; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm; thru Aug. 30. www.odysseytheatre.com Runtime: approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
