A Life of Comforting Traditions and Rituals

Birthday Candles

Dramatic literature is full of plays and musicals whose theme is life affirming. We’re advised to stop and smell the roses, to always appreciate that earth is too wonderful for anybody to realize and to realize that life is a banquet but most people are starving to death. In playwright Noah Haidle’s beautifully poetic new play, which opened on Broadway last year and starred Debra Messing, we follow the life of a woman named Ernestine. She lives in Michigan but longs for travel and adventure. In Northlight’s radiant production this character is in the hands of one of Chicago’s most gifted and popular actresses, Kate Fry. It’s a performance, indeed an entire production, that should definitely not be missed. It’s that exquisite.

The play opens in the kitchen of the Ashworth family. Ernestine is turning 17 and she and her mother are observing a couple of the family rituals. Each year on her birthday, Ernestine’s height is recorded on the wall with a pencil mark. It will be etched into the wall every year for the next several decades. Then Alice, Ernestine’s loving mother, teaches her how to bake the traditional golden butter birthday cake for her party. Alice tells her, “I’d like you to remember something of me,” offering a dark foreshadowing that Ernestine’s mother may not be around very long. 

Being a teenager, however, Ernestine is more interested in working on her audition for the lead in “Queen Lear,” a feminist revision of the Shakespearean tragedy that her high school is about to present. Kenneth, Ernestine’s shy but adoring classmate and neighbor, pops in early, startling her while she’s concentrating on baking. He’s excited to deliver his present: a goldfish in a round, glass bowl, whom he’s named Atman. Kenneth has always had a crush on Ernestine and he asks her to go to the prom. She turns him down saying it’s too childish, yet, after Kenneth has left, Matt, another classmate, shows up early for the party. Ernestine is more interested in him and so she agrees to accompany Matt to the dance. We also meet Billy, Ernestine’s brother, as well as his girlfriend, Joan.

Then, as it often happens during this 90-minute one-act play, the lights dim and a chime sounds, signifying the passage of time. With each new scene Ernestine ages another year—or two—or several. In a way it’s like “Groundhog Day” because every scene occurs on Ernestine’s birthday. But things change as she grows older and, like all of us, Ernestine experiences many sadnesses and losses. People who are close leave, either because their time on earth is over or their chapter in Ernestine’s book of life has simply come to an end. Each year is punctuated by another stage of living. She marries, has children, loses loved ones, reinvents her life and still she goes on. By the last scene, truly the most heartbreaking and humorous of the play, Ernestine has experienced a full life. She’s over a 100 years old but still clinging to the same familiar, comforting birthday rituals. 

Directed with a tender hand and much love and care by the talented Jessica Thebus, this production will go down in the history of Northlight Theatre as one of its finest and most memorable. The five cast members supporting Ms. Fry are all terrific. Except for Timothy Edward Kane (Kate Fry’s actual husband in real life), the other four actors portray two or more characters, all of whom change and grow older throughout the play. However, Mr. Kane’s Kenneth really works his way into the hearts of each theatergoer. At first he’s an awkward young high school boy with an unrequited love for his sweetheart. As the years pass, hope springs eternal and Kenneth doesn’t give up on his adoration of the ever-optimistic Ernestine. It’s a performance sure to touch every theatergoer.

Each actor is strong and creates a unique individual that grows and changes. These six Thespians wring every ounce of humor and raw emotion from their characters. In the role of Ernestine, Kate Fry, who’s simply a treasure. She subtly ages throughout the play without employing wigs, painted on wrinkles, the stereotypical shaking of the hands or a thin, brittle voice. She keeps Ernestine ageless, as she would appear to those who love her. The other two women in the cast, both of whom are making their Northlight debuts, have the challenge of portraying three different characters each. Cyd Blakewell is beautiful and impressive as Alice, Madeline and Ernie; Corrbette Pasko is eloquent and powerful as Joan, Alex and Beth. Chike Johnson, seen recently in Remy Bumppo’s excellent “Galileo’s Daughter,” is strong and yet very vulnerable as both Matt and William. And Samuel B. Jackson, who brilliantly plays both Billy and John, was outstanding in Steppenwolf’s “Choir Boy” and “Chlorine Sky.”

Sotirios Livaditis has rendered a gorgeous set design that is simple but still simple and ageless. There are no walls, and the shelves and cupboards seem to be suspended in midair. The constellations and stars serve as a backdrop for a timeless play that’s also universal. They even surround the downstage area of the set with a circular walkway that leads to exits beneath the audience. Characters come and go through these portals when it’s their time to leave Ernestine’s life. JR Lederle’s lighting design meshes well with Andre Pluess’ sound tracks, particularly the soft chimes that indicate the passage of time.  

Noah Haidle’s drama is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. Every audience member, particularly those of a certain age, knows the joy, pain and life lessons found in this play. They certainly aren’t new but they bear repeating. Haidle borrows themes an ideas found in many other plays, such as “The Gin Game,” “Death of a Salesman,” “Our Town” and even his own earlier play, which premiered at the Goodman, “Smokefall.” As in real life, dialogue and events repeat themselves in scene after scene showing how life has continuity. Comfort comes with  reccuring family traditions and rituals, characters grow older, change and leave, but life goes on.       

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented September 12-October 8 by Northlight Theatre, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, IL.

Tickets are available in person at the theatre box office, by calling 847-673-6300, or by going to www.northlight.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.