Theatre in Review: The Snow Geese (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman)

	Mary-Louise Parker and Victoria Clark. Photo: Joan Marcus

We've long had The Seagull; now say hello to The Snow Geese. Located solidly in the Scandinavian-Russian tradition of delicately rendered depression, Sharr White's new play is an odd duck, a meticulous, but often lifeless, throwback to the dysfunctional family plays of another era I'm not going to pile on; the daily reviewers united as one to point out that White's homage to Chekhov was so complete that if he were alive today Old Anton would probably be on the phone to his lawyer. Still, White is a real craftsman, and he keeps good company; if you do find yourself inside the Friedman Theatre anytime soon, you will see some very fine actors at work under the assured direction of Daniel Sullivan.

At the very least, The Snow Geese offers a pair of striking debuts. Brian Cross makes a strong impression as Arnie, the younger son of a once-wealthy Upstate New York family at the dawn of America's entry into World War I. The Gaeslings were once awash in money, but Arnie's father, the recently deceased Teddy, squandered it through a combination of bad investments and inattention to household management. (Among other things, his servants robbed him blind.) Arnie has spent two months going through his father's chaotic accounts and has a sorry tale to tell, if only anyone will listen. His unwilling auditors include his mother, Elizabeth, who prefers to live in the past, dreaming of moonlit dances and hunting parties, and Duncan, the preferred son, whose life has been an endless round of posh private schools and Princeton dining clubs; even his army regiment, about to leave for France, is filled with the best sons of New York.

It would require a remarkably confident young actor to take on the company of Broadway pros that Sullivan has assembled, but Cross does it with a flourish, seizing the big Act II scene in which Arnie, his fury boiling over, finally confronts his mother and brother -- along with the rest of the household -- with the fact that they have nothing left and are living on loans, all of which are about to run out. That his rage is informed by a lifetime of being slighted by his parents does little to cool his fury. He takes center stage in commanding fashion, but he has subtler skills at his fingertips as well: Later, he carefully, almost tenderly, explains to Duncan (Evan Jonigkeit, the very spirit of boneheaded youthful self-assurance, convinced that the war will be a jolly adventure) that his entire childhood has been based on a carefully arranged, and entirely false, appearance of wealth. (For one thing, extra servants were hired for Duncan's school holidays, only to be let go the day after he left.) Arnie is a big, complex part, and Cross aces it with ease.

Equally impressive in a smaller role is Jessica Love as Victoria, the one remaining Gaesling servant since Arnie turned out the cheats and parasites among them. Victoria is a refugee from Ukraine, where she lived a life of wealth and privilege until the war intervened, she was raped, and her family was wiped out. She lays out her horrific story, quietly, unsentimentally, in a speech to Arnie, by way of gently letting him know that, bad as things are for the Gaeslings, they could be far, far worse. In fact, she's flirting with him a little, and she keeps herself busy folding napkins while she's doing it. It's a tricky business, and Love handles it with remarkable skill. We should be hearing again from her, too.

On to the pros: An evening is never wasted when Victoria Clark is on hand, and here she excels as Clarissa, Elizabeth's upright sister. Having been denied Elizabeth's gilded existence, Clarissa has become a pillar of the Methodist Church, never missing a chance to enjoy a hymn on the gramophone (and tonelessly joining in) or to express her distaste when anyone wants to break out the champagne or sherry. But she is no cartoon Carrie Nation; Clarissa cares deeply for her family, despite their weaknesses, and she has sorrows of her own, most notably a long-dead child. Most important, her practical nature may in the end be the thing that saves the Gaeslings. In one of the play's best scenes, she sits down with Arnie -- her posture ramrod straight, her hands folded on the table -- and quietly asks him what must be done to keep them all from penury. She then makes a startling gesture that will at last hand Arnie his freedom. Clark handles all of this business, and much more, with the clear, unfussy style that has made her one of New York's finest character actresses.

Clarissa's life is complicated by her (happy) marriage to Max, a doctor of German birth who, despite his many years in America and his U.S. citizenship, has become persona non grata in Syracuse because of the war. As played by Danny Burstein, he is a constantly watchful presence, offering mordant, if not unkind, commentary on the family's fallen state, only occasionally bursting into rage over the loss of his career. When Duncan loses control of himself in an argument and calls him a "kraut," he handles the situation with infinite tact, ensuring that the boy understands the cruelty of his remark. Burstein's ability to vanish into a character continues to impress, and The Snow Geese benefits immensely from his presence.

Oddly, the least assured work comes from Mary-Louise Parker, the star of the occasion, as Elizabeth. She does fine work here and there, slipping into tears while offering a toast to her late husband, sadly noting that Arnie has no respect for his mother's foibles, and suddenly resting her head in exhaustion against a china cabinet as she realizes that Duncan is leaving her perhaps forever. At the same time, possibly as a gesture toward Elizabeth's willed immaturity, she seems awfully young for a woman with two adult sons (especially in 1917, when 42 was much older than it is today). Some of her line readings are strangely contemporary -- although, to be fair, White has peppered his text with such 21st-century phrases as "shit storm" and "that's all I've got." She also has a tendency to play against the emotions of a scene -- for example, smiling defiantly while announcing that she is devastated -- a technique that sometimes works and sometimes seems like affectation.

The real issue at hand, however, is the script, with its conscious echoes of Chekhov, Ibsen, and others. White's intention seems to be to depict a family that, having flourished in the Victorian era, struggles to find a way forward in the 20th century. But having borrowed so heavily from one of the theatre's masters, he is unable to transmute these elegant materials into something entirely his own. In one's mind's eye, one sees the stage populated by ghost images of Arkadina, Ranevskaya, and Uncle Vanya. (A gun is produced, and you know what Chekov says about that.) Even if its pedigree is more generalized, The Snow Geese seems destined to go down as another oddball modern/classic hybrid, such as Joshua Logan's The Wisteria Trees, which tried to transplant The Cherry Orchard to the American South.

In any case, watching The Snow Geese is easy, thanks to its stunning production design. John Lee Beatty, who knows how to manipulate the Friedman stage like a piece of origami, gives us the interior the Gaesling lodge from two distinct viewpoints -- the dining room and the kitchen (with the dining room visible in the distance). He can also sweep these interiors away from a gorgeously painted view of a countryside dominated by birch trees and low-hanging clouds. Japhy Weideman's precisely achieved lighting renders crepuscular dawn and cool moonlight, dotted with yellowish stars, with equal ease. Jane Greenwood's costumes are both superb period creations and flattering to the actresses wearing them; note how Elizabeth has managed to achieve the chicest mourning look possible for her time and place. There are also fine contributions from Rocco DiSanti, who offers projections of the title birds in flight, and Dan Moses Schreier, who offers a few key sound effects and his finely rendered melancholy incidental music, scored for piano and reeds.

In the end, The Snow Geese is a highly professional production, if not an especially touching or lively one, largely because it never achieves a life of its own. A disgrace to nobody involved, it comes off less as a fully realized drama than as a writer's exercise, a kind of ventriloquist's act; White may find that his own voice is the more compelling one.--David Barbour