‘Birthday Candles’ Review: Another Year, Another Cake, Another Profundity
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.
Keep Reading
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. […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More