PIAF, WITHOUT THE PARROTING

Eleanora Owen finds the heartbreak
and defiance inside the Little Sparrow’s songs

Eleanora Owen

Édith Piaf’s life overflowed with the severest of extremities: the writhing, rapturous harmony of joyous consonances and agonized dissonances, hastened with the rapidity of a tempo that flamed out after a brief 47 years, and woven with counterpoints of greater tragedy than a hundred hearts should bear. Being Piaf, written and performed by Eleanora Owen and currently at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, pays tribute to the singer-lyricist’s art and life. Under the direction of Tim Byron Owen (a founding member of Los Angeles’ Celtic Arts Center, renowned in its tenure, lamented in its absence), the evening navigates the treacherous torrents between entertainment and heartbreak.

Eleanora Owen

Born in France a mere year after the devastation of the Great War, abandoned by her mother as an infant, raised among prostitutes, a childhood cloaked in blindness, an impoverished existence alleviated by singing first on street corners, then brothels, performing before Nazis while assisting the underground, eventually appearing multiple times on The Ed Sullivan Show and becoming one of the most famous singers in the world and the transcendental voice of her nation.

Eleanora Owen

The death of a child, the murder of a mentor, alcoholism, drug addiction, failed marriages, the constant withering of love, the recurring shredding of hope by the senselessness of death.

Each moment of this life echoes in her songs.

“That is what I’m about,” she acknowledged. “Music and love. The only two things in my life.”

Eleanora Owen

Owen’s performance as “the Little Sparrow” never wavers into mimicry, and her rendering of Piaf’s classic songs such as “La Vie en rose” and “L’Hymne à l’amour” (dedicated to her married lover, French boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, who died in an airplane crash en route to join her in New York) cannot be faulted.

Eleanora Owen

Stephanie Sandler frames each moment in shadow and illuminated pools, creating a sense of the cramped clubs where Piaf performed.

Fate had blessed and cursed Piaf with a voice that was a heartbeat bound in barbed wire; it resonated with the defiance of the damned and showed the world, despite the agonies of life, that the soul could still take flight.

At her death from liver cancer in October 1963, more than 100,000 people gathered at the cemetery where she was buried to thank her for giving them the courage to believe in that possibility.

Eleanora Owen

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photos by Doug Engalla

Being Piaf
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. in Los Angeles
Fri.–Sat. at 8; Sun. at 4
80 minutes
ends on August 30, 2026
for tickets ($35), call 310.477.2055 ext. 2 or visit Odyssey Theatre Ensemble

for more shows, visit Theatre in Los Angeles

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