Roundabout Theatre Company’s New York premiere of Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle, starring Emmy Award winner Debra Messing, directed by Vivienne Benesch officially opens tonight, April 10, 2022. This is a limited engagement through Sunday, May 29, 2022 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street).
The cast stars Debra Messing as “Ernestine,” Enrico Colantoni as “Kenneth,” Tony Award nominee John Earl Jelks as “Matt/William” with Crystal Finn as “Joan/Alex/Beth,” Susannah Flood as “Alice/Madeline/Ernie,” and Christopher Livingston as “Billy/John.”
Let’s see what the critics had to say…
Maya Phillips, New York Times: Repetition can make magic happen: repeat a word or a phrase enough times and it breathes new life, fresh meaning. Or repetition can strip language until all that’s left are empty rhythms and sounds. Words are funny like that. Noah Haidle’s “Birthday Candles,” which opened on Broadway Sunday night at the American Airlines Theater, tries to build poignancy and depth through moments that repeat like a record needle stuck in a groove. Instead, this Roundabout Theater Company production gets caught in a superficial cycle of wannabe profundities and emotional pantomimes.
Dave Quinn, Entertainment Weekly: If only the play gave Messing time to settle, we might have been allowed to experience more of the actress’ range. The action moves so fast that emotional moments pop up out of nowhere, and Ernestine’s responses ring hollow. When she’s betrayed by her husband, the bell tolls to the next year before the audience has had enough time to grasp onto what just happened to our heroine and how she feels. Still, judging by the sniffs in the audience by the play’s conclusion, it’s clear Birthday Candles landed with some. Personally, I was more upset about the cake’s fate than Ernestine’s.
Greg Evans, Deadline: What the play doesn’t quite manage is balance of a more stylistic bent, moving fitfully between naturalism and a more fabulist approach,…