Review: In ‘Birthday Candles,’ the cake is too sweet
4 / 10
Despite the play's universe-skimming ambitions, there's also a narrowness to its imagination of what life can and could be. Ernestine follows a path of least resistance; though she has regrets, 'Birthday Candles' isn't a critique of conformity, or the broader social forces that led her there (she is a woman happily baking a cake, year after year, for more than half a century, after all). The play rather reinforces the heteronormative fantasy that fulfillment comes in recognizable forms - just be careful which man you choose. It's a bitter, if obvious, pill served with enough sugar to rot a full mouth of teeth.
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