Western Michigan University Theatre recently opened its production of Birthday Candles. WMUK’s Gordon Bolar has this review.
Birthday Candles is the story of Ernestine, who on her seventeenth birthday sets out to find her “place in the universe.” That is until life, including marriage and children, gets in the way.
For ninety minutes, we follow Ernestine over her next ninety years. Although Ernestine experiences many changes in her long life, two constants mark her progress at selected intervals: her annual birthday party and the regular attendance of one particular party guest.
Other American plays over the past century have depicted their central character’s life at varying ages in the course of an evening’s performance. They include Albee’s Three Tall Women, Kron and Tesori’s Fun Home, and Wilder’s The Long Christmas Dinner.
Scripts of this nature often require a character who ages within the play to be cast with more than one performer, thus rendering changes across time more believable. Other plays depend on make-up to suggest the addition of years within the course of a lifetime.
Director Mark Liermann’s Birthday Candles, however, successfully navigates the challenges of significant age transitions on stage for the two main characters, without multiple performer casting or heavy age make-up. Nor are we asked to witness bent over bodies, doddering mannerisms, or other stage cliches indicating the ravages of time.
Instead, Liermann’s tight six-person ensemble portrays the changes of age with the acting resources each performer brings to the theatre, and through playing off what their fellow performers bring with them to the stage. Noah Haidle’s smart script helps the audience track these changes by providing understated clues that mark Ernestine’s age or stage in life.
Intervals in time passages are appropriately punctuated by gentle wind chimes and light shifts. Passages into the next world are staged in a darkened corner of the arena under blue light.
The result, on opening night, was a riveting evening in the theatre that relied on simplicity as well as honest exchanges among actors. Staged in the round in the York Arena, this production drew an audience close in proximity, even closer emotionally, and left some of those attending in tears.
Katie Bavirsha, as Ernestine, delivers a superlative performance in a lead role that encompasses the joys, disappointments, and losses contained in a one hundred-and-three-year lifespan.
Bavirsha is a versatile actress up to the challenge of meeting each of the seemingly rapid changes confronting her character over this extended period of time. She can play the giddy teenager with energetic body language, then quickly assume the majestic posture of Shakesperean royalty.
When the moment calls for it, she can rage at her wayward first husband. Late in life, when love comes again, she can giggle like the schoolgirl from her past, blushing after a boyfriend’s kiss.
Bavirsha understands that the endurance of the spirit inside her character, from young girl to old woman, grounds her role in a universal truth at the heart of this play: Ernestine’s journey is that of one who is both every age, and no age at all. Hence, Bavirsha has no need to “play age.”
Perhaps, this is why the characters played by Bavirsha and fellow performers stop to notice and savor the precious present moments in their lives. These include the last rays of sunlight through the west-facing kitchen window, the cry of a newly-born family addition in the next room, an out of tune stand-up piano played poorly down the hall, the staccato rhythmic banging of a cake pan, or the smell of flour, butter, salt, sugar, and vanilla being mixed for the next birthday cake.
Joe Meagher, as Kenneth, the nerdy, likeable wannabe boyfriend brings much to this show in the way of humor. He waxes philosophically on her eighteenth birthday as he presents Ernestine with a goldfish representing the spirit within her. After her first marriage crumbles, Kenneth still comes round for Ernestine’s birthday parties. The goldfish remains, Kenneth’s philosophy grows on her, and a long, nuanced dance on the edge of love, by Meagher’s character is rewarded.
Members of the ensemble assist greatly by playing multiple roles of those in Ernestine’s life. Molly Wilson creates two vastly different characters: a mother who challenges Ernestine to risk her heart and a daughter, Madeline, tragically challenged by her perception of everyday reality.
Lukas Nowak, is on solid ground in every phase of his portrayal of Ernestine’s son. As he takes Billy from adolescence to decline, he a provides a valuable benchmark for Ernestine’s journey.
Carter Barnes delivers two believable roles separated by generations: Ernestine’s stern, unfeeling first husband, and later as her adolescent grandson. Likewise, Madison Warnke’s clever and winning multi-generational characters provide insight into family wisdom and growth over time.
In an old theatre anecdote, a seasoned stage actor was asked what he needed to know to portray his character. He replied “all I need to know is where I am, and who is in the room with me.”
No mention was made of age. Thankfully, the six performers in Western Michigan University Theatre’s Birthday Candles have a full grasp on the lesson implied here.
