Stage Reviews : ‘Le Miracle de Piaf’ at CalRep Captures a Soaring Spirit

The setting, and the point of departure, for “Le Miracle de Piaf,” Sheri Nichols’ one-woman show at CalRep about France’s legendary Edith Piaf, is her 1959 “miracle” concert, given four months after doctors told her she would never perform in public again.

They did not know their “Little Sparrow” as well as they thought. “When I am singing,” she says, “I am no longer on Earth!” In spite of accidents and illnesses and tragedies, of which there were even many--outlined in flashback--there was “always the spotlight.”

That spotlight still exists, in the bittersweet memory of the special world that was Piaf’s alone. And, to a great extent, it still exists in the heartbreaking re-creation of that world by Sheri Nichols.

Not only does Nichols echo Piaf to perfection--her instrument is powerful, glittering and has Piaf’s unforgettably individual quality of honey-patinated stridence--but she’s also a fine actress, able to give evocative hints of the soul of la mome Piaf, the abandoned street child who became an international favorite singing “to the rich about the poor.”

Piaf’s signature song, “ Je Ne Regrette Rien “ (“I Regret Nothing”), caps the performance, but its theme winds through her life in Nichols’ amazing performance. At times we forget we are not watching and listening to Piaf herself--her courage and despair--from the soulful poignancy of her first big hit, “ Mon Legionnaire, “ to the buoyancy of “ Milord .”

If Howard Burman’s script is a bit repetitive and little more than a chronology, Ronald Allan Lindblom’s staging is tight and varied enough to forgive the repetition, and Richard Berent’s musical direction (he also accompanies on piano, beautifully assisted by Gigi Lynn Rabe on accordion and Devitt M. Feeley on bass) has the rolling gait of the milieu.

The writer of many of Piaf’s biggest successes, Marguerite Monnot (“ La Vie en Rose ,” “ Milord “) also wrote the musical “Irma la Douce” for Piaf, but the legend was too ill to play it. The miracles were used up--except for the miracle of her very existence.

It’s the memory of that miracle that Sheri Nichols bestows with refreshing honesty and skill on those who still miss the heart and vibrancy of the Little Sparrow.

At Cal State Long Beach, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; ends next Saturday. $12; (213) 985-5526.