‘Birthday Candles’ Broadway Review: Debra Messing Bakes Up A Life In New Dramedy
Despite whatever missteps, though, Messing and the rest of the cast nicely convey the spectrum of emotions that a life’s sweep encompasses, from happy times to sad (at the reviewed performance, audience sobs and sniffles were as audible as the laughter). Not even a tacked-on final birthday scene that strains credulity can sour the simple, icing-sweet pleasures of Birthday Candles.
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A Recipe for Love is Served in ‘Birthday Candles’
Familiarity often breeds contempt but in Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles, it also serves as the ingredient of love. Over the course of the 90 minutes of this tightly calibrated Broadway debut, that love transforms Ernestine (Debra Messing) from a rebellious 17-year-old on the cusp of greatness into a 107-year-old great-grandmother who holds her family together. […]
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While Looking at History “Suffs” Elects Didacticism Over Adventurousness
Shaina Taub has spent eight years researching and condensing the adventures of women’s rights activist Alice Paul and her cronies into a manageable tale. Despite the comparatively concise final product, at nearly three hours in runtime, Suffs (shorthand for women who fought to win the right to vote) still feels too long to absorb in […]
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