Birthday Candles’ Illuminates Life’s Fleeting Beauty at Chautauqua
Review by Anthony Chase
Set in a modest kitchen, “Birthday Candles” by Noah Haidle is a beautiful and affecting play. We follow Ernestine Ashworth at various stages of her life from age 17 to 101, always on her birthday. Throughout these snapshots, we see her experience love, loss, and the passage of time, and Haidle explores themes of mortality, the meaning of life, and how small, everyday moments can shape our existence.
The play owes its very existence to Chautauqua Theater Company, where it received essential development in the Chautauqua New Play Workshop of 2017. Under the direction of former CTC artistic director, Vivienne Benesch, it would have its world premiere at Detroit Public Theatre in 2018, and would go on to a high-profile Broadway outing, also directed by Benesch. That production starred Debra Messing of “Will and Grace” fame, who gave a tour de force performance. It has since been staged around the country. The current Chautauqua Theater Company production, directed by Arya Shahi, is a homecoming.