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I’m a sucker for a dark and stormy French chanson, whether it’s sung by an interpreter of Edith Piaf (I caught Maria Bill’s tour-de-force solo show when I was a student in Salzburg, Austria) or interspersed in a full-length production (as in last year’s gorgeously sung Off Broadway revival of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris). There's something so wonderfully unsettling about a tempestuous tale of love sung by a wine-soaked voice as a cheerful accordion works in counterpoint to lift a layer of the gloom. This paradoxical mixture (happy & sad) creates a truly visceral experience for its listeners. Pain morphs into something both beautiful and painful: performance.

Lured by the pathos, I jumped at the chance to review a Fringe Festival show that celebrated the life and music of Edith Piaf: Naomi Emmerson’s strong and wistful une-femme triumph, Piaf: Love Conquers All.

Show Business Weekly Review: Piaf: Love Conquers All

It’s no easy task to collapse the infamous French singer’s tragic life: it’s really as eccentric and riddled with romantic woes as they come. But Emmerson (who also directs) and Roger Peace (who wrote the book) have created an evocative and entertaining look at Piaf’s life and love(s), primarily by hinging her story firmly around what ultimately mattered to her most: the music. Emmerson sings 13 of Piaf’s most beloved melodies; interspersed with vignettes (which are charming but not always perfectly natural), the music moves into a new dimension, textured and shaped by Piaf’s real life experiences. Angst often seems to be a requisite tool for singers who brood about love, but here it is all the more riveting (and believable) because we can, for the most part, see directly to the root of her complaints.

From the opening seen, in which Piaf enters in a cascade of joy, extolling the virtues of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (apparently, he’s a composer she’s just recently discovered), we are presented with a girlish woman (or a womanish girl?) who always feels as if she’s the last one to arrive at the party--and is determined to make up for it. Now.

If Emmerson is a bit more convincing in the first act (Piaf's youth and rise to fame) than the second (her painful decline), it's likely the fault of the script, which pinches the final events of Piaf's life together a bit haphazardly and hurriedly. Stephanie Layton is terrific in a series of supporting roles, and she is a deft and dazzling musician; she flits between the accordion and the piano without missing a beat. John Doyle would do well to scoop her up for his revival of Sweeney Todd.

Unfortunately, the show has already concluded its brief run, but keep your eyes peeled for Emmerson: she’s been playing Piaf for nearly 15 years now, and after a successful run at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2005 (and, by all accounts, a successful one here as well), it’s likely this raucous pixie will pop up again in a neighborhood near you.