In roughly 100 tear-jerking minutes, Noah Haidle’s “Birthday Candles” manages to capture one of the defining dichotomies of human existence. Our lives are utterly unique, yet they are also — save a very few — equally unremarkable as we cycle from childhood to adulthood to dotage.
Still, as Ernestine Ashworth passionately proclaims on her 17th birthday in the first scene of the emotionally rich drama that opened Wednesday night at Skokie’s Northlight Theatre, she intends to rebel against the universe and its banalities.
