Thursday, August 16, 2007

Tonight: A Visit to the Fringe


In Piaf: Love Conquers All, Naomi Emmerson astonishingly channeled Edith Piaf. With a little help from her accompanist, who doubled as the awkward actor for several characters who helped move the biographical piece along, Naomi blew us away as the tragic French chanteur. She sang each chanson with a mixture of pain, humor and beauty. She astonished me at every turn. Her transformation from the young street singer to the tragic diva suffering from love affairs and addiction to morphine was completely believable. I completely forgot that I was sitting in a broken seat, in a very hot and cramped room. The Fringe audience cheered loudly at every chance and gave her a very long and much deserved ovation when the show ended much too soon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you enjoyed the show and wrote such a favorable review! Let your readers know that we were awarded "Outstanding Musical" and we are getting a repeat performance (well 8 actually) as part of the Fringe Encore Series. We open Thursday August 30th at the SoHo Playhouse on Vandam St.
www.fringenyc-encores.com