Debra Messing ages a century in Broadway’s ‘Birthday Candles’
Welcome to Curtain Call, our mostly queer take on the latest theater openings on Broadway and beyond.Debra Messing evolves from age 7 to 107, portraying Ernestine Ashworth from a stubbornly optimistic child to a well-worn great grandmother in playwright Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles.
The play’s heightened exploration of what it means to live, love, and lose offers the Emmy-winning actress plenty of dramatic fodder to chew on, including a birthday cake baked in real-time, permeating the audience with the waft of a potentially delicious bite of theater that ultimately feels like it’s missing an ingredient.
With the ding of a bell, the years go by. We’re all subject to it these days, with Facebook incessantly populating our feeds with its memory posts claiming, “We care about you and the memories you share here.” But the magic of Haidle’s premise eventually wears thin because, like real life, some moments we relish and others we’d prefer to forget.
Like many Broadway shows this season, Birthday Candles was originally supposed to run as part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2019-20 season, with rehearsals having just begun on March 3, 2020.
