Piaf: Love Conquers All

How many lifetimes can an entertainer squeeze into 47 years? Judy Garland certainly lived a life wildly larger than that relatively brief span could suggest, but Edith Piaf even magnified upon that in her own 47 years. While Garland could be self-deprecating about her travails, she expended a similar effort trying to convince the public of her overall "normalcy." Not so Edith Piaf, who played out her personal dramas both in public and on the stage, and actually cultivated an image as a battered, wanton, frail survivor. "Over the Rainbow," with its promise of a better life, has a far different vibe than "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," which is essentially a deathbed anthem of gimlet-eyed contentment.

While La Vie en Rose, the screen biography of Piaf starring Marion Cotillard, was a stylish enterprise, it was also a big downer. Playwright Roger Peace and performer Naomi Emmerson take a different approach in letting Piaf tell her own story in her own terms. All the key points are here, from a squalid childhood to morphine addiction, but they seem more confessional than exploitative - a humanizing factor that the movie neglected.

While the setting for Piaf: Loves Conquers All, now at the Eureka Theatre, remains the same through the two acts - the audience is a guest in Piaf's apartment as she reminisces - Emmerson plays out her memories in age-appropriate fashion. So it's a wide-eyed naif telling us about a childhood among prostitutes in the first act, and a hunched, ailing veteran who relates the final days, when stagehands would place bets on the timing of her demise.

The one-woman production premiered in Montreal in 1992 with a different actress as Piaf, but Emmerson first got her hands on it the following year, and has since toured extensively with the vehicle. The Canadian performer doesn't immediately suggest the diminutive Piaf, especially in the first act, but the accelerated aging that Piaf experienced is convincingly communicated in Emmerson's body language and delivery of the dialogue.

As for Emmerson's singing, her stylings certainly suggest the Piaf sound without coming across as an impersonation. Some of the built-in pathos of Piaf's own delivery goes missing, but in an interesting choice by the playwright and Emmerson (who is also the director), the 13 songs from the Piaf repertoire are seldom sung as stand-alone numbers. Rather, they are woven into the dialogue, and don't demand a full-out Piaf impersonation. Alan Choy is Emmerson's able accompanist.

Piaf: Love Conquers All doesn't spare us the brutal facts of the singer's life, but with a few exceptions, the emotional digging does not go very deep. This is Piaf with both warts and makeup.

Piaf: Love Conquers All will run at the Eureka Theatre through Aug. 7. Tickets are $25-$36. Call (800) 3006 or go to www.brownpapertickets.com.