Birthday Candles
at Chautauqua Theater Company
By Noah Haidle
Directed by Arya Shahi
BIRTHDAY CANDLES opened the 150th anniversary season of the Chautauqua Institute and marked the homecoming of the play (which was commissioned there) after a Broadway run. Ernestine Ashworth contemplates her cosmic insignificance on her 17th birthday. This feeling follows her through the swift passage of time. In the blink of an eye, she reaches her 18th birthday, hurtles toward her 41st, accelerates into her 70th, and glides into her 101st. Our story guides the audience through the significant, challenging, and remarkable moments as time inexorably marches on. One ordinary woman’s life is measured by the simple and repeated tradition of baking a birthday cake.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE:
“Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle is my favorite kind of a play. It turns the ordinary extraordinary. It makes the mundane mythic. This play is pure surprise in the same way our long lives feel short in retrospect…” - Director’s Note
PRAISE:
“Every once in a while, I get to see a play during which I start thinking of all the people I wish were there with me because it’s so good. And right now, that play is BIRTHDAY CANDLES”
“A beautiful and affecting play. Shahi’s direction of the production preserves and highlights all the play’s virtues. He keeps his entire cast onstage throughout the proceedings, emphasizing its performative nature.”
Photos by Arya Shahi