Debra Messing (Will & Grace) returns to the stage as Ernestine Ashworth, who spends her 17th birthday agonizing over her insignificance in the universe.
Soon enough, it’s her 18th birthday. Even sooner, her 41st. Her 70th. Her 101st. Five generations, dozens of goldfish, an infinity of dreams, one cake baked over a century. What makes a lifetime…into a life?
A writer of "freewheeling ambition" (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times), Noah Haidle makes his Broadway debut with a poignant new play as fearless in scope as it is tremendous in heart.
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For many, Birthday Candles will no doubt prove deeply moving, especially since it inevitably deals with so many relatable issues for both young and old. And if I'm being honest, there were moments that got to me as well, proving that there's still something resembling a heart beneath this curmudgeonly exterior. But then, I've always found cheap music extraordinarily potent.
In Noah Haidle's thin and drippy Birthday Candles, the earnest Ernestine (Debra Messing) prepares and bakes a cake in 90 minutes of real time, as 90 years of her life pass by. A smell of baking thus wafts through the theatre, providing one of the production's few whiffs of reality. Haidle means to suggest that the specific is universal- Christine Jones's set is a kitchen that floats in the vastness of the cosmos, with household objects hanging over it like stars- but he forgets to be specific. It's Thornton Wilder without the wildness or the thorns.
2022 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Debra Messing |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Play | Birthday Candles |
2021 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Enrico Colantoni |
2021 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Crystal Finn |
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