#Susannah flood birthday age series

Another signifier is Ernestine’s annual measurements penciled on a doorframe she grows taller until she begins shrinking as an old woman.

#Susannah flood birthday age series

Whereas Jack Crabb, portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Arthur Penn’s 1970 epic revisionist Western Little Big Man, spends his 121-year life on the road, meeting famous people (General Custer, Wild Bill Hickok), encountering a diverse series of events (battles with Native Americans, saloon shootouts, getting married and operating a small store), and watching everything change around him, Ernestine lives in a self-contained bubble, with no inkling of what is happening in society at large there are no references to politics, sports, entertainment, anything that can put us in a specific time and place, only what is occurring within the family at any given moment, and always on her birthday. Pierce stepping in for Livingston.)Įrnestine serves as a witness to birth and death, illness and infidelity, success and failure, devoid of any references to the outside world. (Jelks, Crystal Finn, Susannah Flood, and Christopher Livingston play multiple roles, their character not always immediately apparent as the next generation arrives. Ernestine wears essentially the same costume (by Toni-Leslie James) in every scene as she ages, the time shifts indicated only by a sharp chime that arrives in the middle of the action and contextual clues given by the dialogue and the outfits of the other characters, which range from her boyfriend and future husband, Matt (Tony nominee John Earl Jelks), to her numbers-obsessed neighbor, Kenneth (Enrico Colantoni), who has a serious crush on her, to a parade of children, their spouses, their children, etc. Each scene takes place in the same kitchen, which never changes. The play is built around her annual preparation of her birthday cake, a recipe handed down from mother to daughter in their family. Haidle’s Broadway debut is a touching and bittersweet, if at times Hallmark-y, look at ninety years in the life of an average American woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Have I wasted my life?” Ernestine (Debra Messing) asks her mother, Alice (Susannah Flood), at the beginning of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles, continuing through May 29 at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre. Tuesday – Sunday through May 29, $39-$250 Ernestine (Debra Messing) lives a relatively simple life in Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles (photo by Joan Marcus)Ģ27 West 42nd St.