After her “Hedda Gabler” was unfairly savaged in 2009, Mary-Louise Parker took a few years to lick her wounds and focus on her Showtime series, “Weeds.”
Now the raven-tressed, porcelain-skinned actress is off TV and back on Broadway in “The Snow Geese.”
This being a new play, you’d think it would be tailor-made for Parker — especially since Sharr White’s previous drama, “The Other Place,” worked mostly as a vehicle for Laurie Metcalf.
But White’s new WWI-set soap opera turns out to be more of an ensemble piece — and Parker’s character, Elizabeth Gaesling, isn’t even first among equals.
Elizabeth is the widowed matriarch of a wealthy upstate family. Or rather, they used to be rich: The late Mr. Gaesling (Christopher Innvar, in a flashback) was a dreamer and a spendthrift. Now the extended Gaesling clan must come to terms with their new situation. Some of them cope better than others.
The most interesting parts of the show pit the older son, Duncan (Evan Jonigkeit), against his brother, Arnold (Brian Cross). Duncan is a vain Princeton grad who’s about to ship off to that famous social-climbing opportunity called war. His regiment “is made of the finest sons of New York,” he brags, “and I got invited to join them!”
Cross, a redhead who looks like the young Ron Howard, waltzes off with the show as the level-headed Arnie, who responds to Duncan’s self-obsessed idiocy with seething sarcasm. That Jonigkeit lacks the frivolous charm necessary for his role tilts the balance even further in Cross’ favor.
Duncan isn’t Arnie’s only challenge. Looking Goth-tastic in a black gown, Parker gives us an Elizabeth who sees herself as the victim of cosmic unfairness. This flighty woman is as heedless as the man who bankrupted them and refuses to take responsibility.
Director Daniel Sullivan smoothly handles White’s melodramatic story, which also includes Elizabeth’s religious sister, Clarissa, and her German husband, Max. The reliably wonderful Victoria Clark and Danny Burstein (doing a rather odd accent) act the hell out of tacked-on parts. You actually would like to know more about Clarissa, whose forbidding manner hides a kind spirit.
“The Snow Geese” doesn’t dig deep, but there’s something satisfying about its shamelessly old-fashioned approach: Oedipal tension! Feuding brothers! Families overwhelmed by the times! A war that will change everything!
Some of us would rather see that than the tempests in a Starbucks cup crowding so many new plays.