I don’t know what the optimum chronological age is at which to see this gorgeous play, which spans nine decades in the life of one Ernestine. I think it might well be whatever your age is right now. As luminously portrayed by Deidra LaWan Starnes, Ernestine starts out as a teenager and ages before our eyes in successive scenes until she is a centenarian. As we witness Ernestine’s beautifully played, long-lived timeline, we are tacitly invited to reflect on the years of our own — however many there have been so far, however many we have left. It is a profoundly affecting experience of theater’s power to reframe what it means to live a life.
The playwright, Noah Haidle, has devised an ingenious technique with which to theatricalize the passage of time: On each of Ernestine’s birthdays, she bakes a cake (hence the title, Birthday Candles). Even as multiple members of her family with multiple storylines come and go around her, in scenes that flow one into another like movements of wistful music, it is the exact same cake, which begins in a bowl of batter, rises visibly in the oven, and fills the theater with sweet aroma when it is done.
The set by Jonathan Dahm Robertson is a wonder: a charming, working kitchen styled as though for a homey cooking show, with copper molds on the wall and checkered curtains on the window. It stays the same throughout, with the same array of family photos displayed on cupboards and fridge. What Ernestine wears in Lynly Saunders’ subtly everyday costume design, a 17-year-old’s bib overalls and sneaks, also never changes — a lovely image of what can last of one’s youth.
An exceptionally resourceful supporting cast enters in shifting roles to tell Ernestine’s unfolding story: Hannah Taylor appears initially as Ernestine’s stern but loving mother, then her daughter, and then her granddaughter. Chris Genebach plays Ernestine’s stolid husband at several ages, later her grandson. Surasree Das first has a delightful turn as Ernestine’s hyperanxious daughter-in-law, then Ernestine’s granddaughter, and in the end, one of two coupled nonrelatives. Patrick Joy appears as Ernestine’s initially gangly and obstinate son at several ages and, in the end, as the other nonrelative. Haidle’s deft handling of the exposition around each of these intergenerational doublings or triplings makes for a breathtaking emotional investment in the overarching narrative. Only Jacob Yeh, like Starnes, plays the same role throughout: Kenneth, a neighbor whose enduring fondness for Ernestine makes for some of the play’s most hilarious and heartwarming moments.
On Ernestine’s 18th birthday, Kenneth brings her a present: a goldfish in a gift-wrapped bowl. Goldfish, we are told, have a memory only three seconds long; after three seconds, history erases and their watery world is all new again. By human contrast, of course, remembrance can go on and on until it doesn’t anymore. Reminding us of this mortality, the goldfish remains on the kitchen table the whole time.
The seamless transitions between scenes are striking in their beauty and musicality as the delicate piano in Sarah O’Halloran’s sound design syncs with Helen Garcia-Alton’s stunning lighting design. And without the specificity of Cindy Jacobs’ prop design, there’d be no ingredients or utensils with which to bake.
Alex Levy’s direction shapes each tonal shift and meaning in each scene with perfect respect for its resonance with the audience. Among the many pleasures of Haidle’s script are what I think of as its echoes over time — such as a particular turn of phrase that sounds like something heard previously, or an incident reminiscent of something that happened before. Levy deeply gets that, so do the actors, and thus so do we. It is an ongoing revelation of how, in every human lifetime, history doesn’t repeat, but it sometimes rhymes.
There’s another deeply impactful theatrical technique in Birthday Candles that I don’t want to give away, but you’ll feel it when you see it, when on occasion someone dies.
Haidle has also given his characters some heart-filled poetic language that one might wish one could listen to again. Ernestine, for instance, as a spirited young woman at the beginning, declares:
ERNESTINE: I am a rebel against the universe.
I am waging a war with the everyday.
I am going to surprise God!
In Ernestine’s youthful aspiration, which we follow till its culmination, Haidle gives the play a rich helping of existential sentiment as well as a provocative, evocative theme: a yearning for the surety of one’s place in the cosmos. It is a quest, this priceless play suggests, that is worth living and dying for.
Running Time: One hour and 40 minutes, no intermission.
Birthday Candles plays through December 21, 2025, at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Tickets ($15–$55) can be purchased online or by calling (703) 854-1856.
Birthday Candles
By Noah Haidle
Directed by Alex Levy
FEATURING
Deidra LaWan Starnes: Ernestine
Hannah Taylor: Alice/Madeline/Ernie
Jacob Yeh: Kenneth
Chris Genebach: Matt/William
Surasree Das: Joan/Alex/Beth
Patrick Joy: Billy/John
PRODUCTION & DESIGN
Costume Design: Lynly Saunders
Scenic Design: Jonathan Dahm Robertson
Props Design: Cindy Jacobs
Lighting Design: Helen Garcia-Alton
Sound Design: Sarah O’Halloran
Stage Manager: Sarah Usary
Intimacy Coordinator: Lorraine Ressegger-Slone
Associate Artistic Director: Deidra LaWan Starnes
Assistant Director: Ezinne Elele
Assistant Stage Manager: Maria Bissex
