“Sakata is mesmerizing… intense moments of unbearably sad emotional fragility”

“In the sections where the controversial diva drifts into fantasy…..Sakata is mesmerizing. And when she falls into a one-person dialogue between her challenging character and Maria’s boorish paramour Ari Onassis, she is uncanny in the delineation between the two—and as heartbreaking as a Piaf song in her reactions to the conversations. Sakata also seamlessly intertwines the rise and fall of this great artist’s infamous braggadocio with intense moments of unbearably sad emotional fragility.”

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