Birthday Candles, With Debra Messing, Is Not Much of a Party
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Too much rests on Messing's shoulders, and it's simply the wrong play for her gifts. She has some odd ideas about playing young - her 17-year-old Ernestine has the physicality of a stomping kindergartner - and during the play's long middle she's inert, unable to strike sparks from her family. Even in moments of heightened emotion, Messing seems disconnected from those around her, twinkling at her children but not quite meeting their eyes. She's strongest when Ernestine gets into her nineties, because Messing's faraway gaze and abstracted air begin to take on poignancy. What is she seeing? What can she hear? Maybe there's some other life clamoring for her attention. Or maybe her mind is finally up there amid the constellation of lifetime things. Perhaps she's finding her place in the expanding universe, traveling farther and faster away.
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