Review: Birthday Candles at 1st Stage

It’s a day that comes around once a year: birthdays. Some people celebrate, and others might barely acknowledge another year around the Sun. 1st Stage’s production of Birthday Candles, directed by Alex Levy and written by Noah Haidle, is a celebration of life, love, and family with a stellar cast led by Deidra LaWan Starnes. Starnes stars as Ernestine, who celebrates her birthday every year with a ritual: baking a cake. Ernestine learned how to bake this cake from her mother, who in turn learned from her own mother. As Ernestine and her mother create the cake, they discuss star dust and atoms, and finding one's place in the universe. This tradition then carries on, as Ernestine’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren learn of this cake at the center of Ernestine’s birthday ritual. Different birthdays come and go over a span of decades. The set, designed by Jonathan Dahm Roberston, a grandmother’s warm and inviting kitchen, remains as omnipresent as Atman (shoutout to Clementine and Tangerine), a goldfish given to Ernestine as an eighteenth birthday present by her friend and neighbor, Kenneth (Jacob Yeh).

Ernestine declares as a teen that she wants to rebel against the universe, but sometimes, the universe has other plans first. She marries her high school “sweetheart,” William (Chris Genebach), and has two children, Maddy (Hannah Taylor) and Billy (Patrick Joy). Happiness is as fleeting for Ernestine as a goldfish’s memory (3 seconds to be exact). Her daughter struggles with mental illness, her marriage starts to crumble, and her relationship with her son begins to unravel. And this is only the beginning of the family drama within Haide’s play.

Under Alex Levy’s direction, Birthday Candles radiates this warmth about the beauty of a life well-lived. Deidra LaWan Starnes plays Ernestine as a young teenager to a woman living out her golden years with gusto. There is an endurance and drive that comes with playing Ernestine. Starnes never leaves the stage and never wavers from giving each line everything that she’s got. The majority of the supporting cast in Birthday Candles play multiple characters across different age ranges. This is a challenging task, but they accomplish it well. The revolving door of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren makes for a full house. This includes the sibling dynamics between Hannah Taylor’s Madeline and Patrick Joy’s Billy, as well as Surasree Das’ eccentric Joan, who becomes Ernestine’s daughter-in-law, Kenneth (a sincere and heartwarming performance by Yeh), a longtime family friend who is always trying to win Ernestine’s heart, and William (Chris Genebach), Ernestine’s loving husband.

Haidle’s script purposely reuses some lines to reinforce that circular pattern of family lore, stories, and rituals. While this is great the first couple of times, the echoes become a little too predictable. The story’s pacing is great at the beginning, but it starts to lag towards the end as it pulls at the audience’s emotions for a final time.

1st Stage’s Birthday Candles is a celebration of life wrapped into a play. If you decide to see this production, be sure to bring tissues and some emotional support (you will thank me later).

Run Time: About 95 minutes without an intermission​

1st Stage’s Birthday Candles runs from December 4 through December 21, 2025.

Top photo caption and credit: Deidra LaWan Starnes in Birthday Candles, December 4 - 21. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography