The Pittsburgh Tatler: Playwright Noah Haidle has noted that one inspiration for his play Birthday Candles was Thornton Wilder’s one-act play The Long Christmas Dinner, which speeds through nine decades of Christmas dinners, along with several generations of a wealthy family’s life in their ancestral home, in about thirty minutes of stage time.
3 comments:
The plot of Birthday Candles sounds fascinating! I would love to see this play. I am especially interested in the analysis of the same actor playing multiple generations (such as the one who plays the main character’s mother, daughter, and great-granddaughter). That’s a fascinating choice to show cyclicality and perhaps pointing at the idea of history repeating itself. It also brings up an interesting idea about a person being the sum of the generations that have come before. Is there a piece of us that has been passed down, creating a throughline from us to our ancestors? I would be curious to know if the script calls to cast the roles in this way or if this was a choice by the creative team. Either way, I love the depth and ideas that it brings. Overall, this seems like a thought provoking play that I would absolutely love to see.
The plot of this play seems very interesting, kind of reminds me of Kimberly Akimbo, but this idea of repetition and atoms in the universe and living life to the fullest is very interesting. I would have really liked to see this play at the city theater. In one of our classes, we also got to talk to an alumnus of this undergrad program who was the scenic designer of the show, which was super cool and made this show seem very interesting. This plot line seems super complex, yet simple at the same time, and sounds like it would make me cry. The name of this also intrigued me, because I thought this would be very pinky and purple color-wise, but after this article provided the production photos, it was the complete opposite of what I thought. I am hoping to see some more production photos. I wish I had seen this show while it was open. I love how the City Theatre always does new work for their productions.
I considered going to see Birthday Candles when I received the email that the show would be in town, but quickly decided against it and chose to hang out with my friends that night instead. Ironically, maybe that's part of the intended message of the performance: do what you love when you can because those opportunities are fleeting. Having only read the synopsis, I can appreciate what the author of the article was trying to say about the message falling flat due to the main character's long, full life. However, I also think that this is a tragedy in its own right. Ernestine may have lived a long life, but been unhappy or felt that she never experienced all of the things she wanted to, which could be a sentimental story. But if this is never addressed, or Ernestine is still alive at the end of the performance, I understand how it could fall flat.
Post a Comment