*Photo by Joan Marcus
There are so many ways to say something nice about a play while still feeling as though you can’t quite recommend it.
That’s the case for Noah Haidle’s “Birthday Candles” starring Debra Messing and directed by Vivienne Benesch. The Roundabout production has the kind of premise you’d expect from a Haidle play. He’s one of the most imaginative playwrights currently working, and that’s why it was such a surprise to find the warmed-over confection that makes up his latest work.
Messing plays Ernestine, a woman who ages decades over the course of the play’s ninety minutes. All the moments we see her living through occur on her birthday, and as time slides by, we see her clinging to traditions handed down to her from her grandmother and mother—the most notable one being the baking of a birthday cake. Like the play itself, the cake comes out half-finished, and, with a glance, Messing tosses it in the garbage. So no, we never get the candles. Not that it’s something to be hung up over, but it seems indicative of a kind of theatrical surrender that I experienced as the play reached its final moments.
Does that mean it’s awful?
No.
It’s just unbearably sentimental. It borrows more than it creates. It offers no insight into aging, death, or grief. The performances are good, but the script is too light to offer anything for the actors to dig into. Messing is forced to resort to cartoonish tendencies since she never leaves the stage and has to convey the mannerisms of an octogenarian for a third of the show. It’s a feat on paper, but in practice, it never becomes what it should be—which is a tour de force.
As I was watching the play, I began to wonder if this was Haidle simply trying to write something commercial so he could pay his bills. That still left me wondering why Roundabout would want to produce it and why Messing would want to headline it. It would seem more at home sandwiched in between “Over the River and Through the Woods” and “Almost, Maine.” Those shows have their place, and there’s no reason to believe that place can’t be Broadway, but Roundabout has given us some remarkable productions this season (Caroline, or Change, Trouble in Mind, English) and this title feels out of place among the others.
The gorgeous set design by Christine Jones promises an experience of wonder and beauty that the play fails to reach. I kept wanting Haidle’s script to go further. To step out of the box. It’s clear that this story means something to him, but when you’re tackling such broad issues, specifics are everything. Crystal Finn’s Joan is the closest the show comes to offering us something original. As Ernestine’s daughter-in-law, she comes across as a character who isn’t defined by what’s wrong about her even though she’s fixated on those flaws. Instead, the fixation becomes the character, and that offers us the opportunity to meet someone we’ve never encountered until now. Ernestine’s husband, daughter, son, and pining admirer all seem like caricatures given some witty dialogue to help sustain them so they don’t fall over and reveal themselves to be cardboard cutouts.
There’s a beautiful moment with Ernestine and her daughter (played with confidence by Susannah Flood) where she helps her mother put on shoes, and as much as I loved that moment, I wasn’t sure where it had come from or why we had earned it. It was asking me to fill in the gaps, which is something I’m happy to do as an audience member, but what is it I should be filling them in with? My own memories? My own fears about getting older or losing loved ones? The play wasn’t asking me to meet it halfway; it was asking me to do the work for it.
I have no doubt Birthday Candles will find a home in community theaters and colleges across the country despite the occasional “F” bomb it employs. I can almost see sold-out matinee audiences thrilled that they can dab their eyes and laugh a few times and still be home before five.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but it’s a low bar nonetheless.
It’s like discovering your husband got you perfume for your birthday for the third year in a row.
Oh sure, you can always use more perfume, but couldn’t he have come up with something better?