Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
#1Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 3:41pm
So excited to see Mary-Louise Parker back on stage!
Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker will star in the Manhattan Theatre Club-MCC Theater co-production of Sharr White's The Snow Geese, a new WWI-set drama about a family facing a changing future, which will have its world premiere at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway this fall.
Daniel Sullivan (The Merchant of Venice), who directed Parker (Hedda Gabler, How I Learned to Drive) in the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Proof, will helm the production that begins previews Oct. 1 toward an Oct. 24 opening night. The Snow Geese will play an 11-week Broadway engagement.
Playbill.com
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#2Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 3:45pmyaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
FishermanBob
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/9/12
#2Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 4:03pmCan't wait. I love that woman!
#3Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 4:30pmGreat to see Parker returning to New York in a new play. Also great that Sharr White is getting to present a new work on Broadway after the success of THE OTHER PLACE at MTC.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#4Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 5:15pmI have been so anxiously waiting for Mary-Louise Parker to return to the stage, as I've never seen her on Broadway before but have become a huge fan of her work!
#5Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 6:19pmAC, I'm very excited to see Parker back in NY, especially since she was vocal about her dislike toward the bad press and the bad reviews surrounding the NY theatre scene when she did HEDDA GABLER. I saw her in DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE and while I really disliked the play, I thought she was luminous. It's also great to see her working with Sullivan again, I hope this is a good one, can't wait to see her.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#6Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 6:20pmAlthough Parker's role is large, I'd say the actual "leading" role is the younger son.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#7Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 6:24pm
ray, I thought about her reaction to the bad Hedda press when I saw The Snow Geese headline too. Parker's trials and tribulations with Hedda are a cautionary tale for any actor: If you take a gig with Roundabout, especially at the American Airlines, you run a great risk turning in a bad performance, no matter your talent level or past experiences. No one suffered the Roundabout curse worse than Parker in the past five years.
That said, I'm thrilled she's coming back to the stage!
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
#8Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 7:33pm
Whizzer, I remember at the time she said that she had talked to Laura Linney about the bad press (mentioning how they were both discouraged to do theatre in NY), which has an interesting relation to your comment since Linney had just gotten terrible reviews for LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES at the American Airlines too! So you definitely have a point.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#9Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 8:35pmCan anybody that saw Hedda describe why it went so horribly wrong? When I was first looking into Parker's theater work years ago, I noticed this was a major blemish according to critics, etc. but I never saw a clear reason. How was Parker's performance?
greatwhiteway72
Understudy Joined: 8/20/08
#10Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 8:55pm
Kad- Have you read the play? Is it any good? I'm curious to know the ages of the sons.
Also, what did Mary-Louise Parker say about her bad press for Hedda Gabbler?
#11Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:05pmFlailing. I am flailing.
I know you.
I know you.
I know you.
#12Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:10pm
HEDDA was such a monumental disaster from the second the curtain went up to when it came down, it should be studied as a way NOT to do a show. If I remember correctly, the first thing you saw when the curtain rose was Parker, laying upstage on a windowsill (?) with her back to the audience and her bare ass in display.
And also remember that not long before this production, Cate Blanchett's version played to sold out houses at BAM, so that stunning and brilliant version was still fresh on people's minds.
Updated On: 4/10/13 at 09:10 PM
#13Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:24pmThe play is pretty good. The sons are late teens/early twenties. Young men.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#14Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:40pm
"Parker's trials and tribulations with Hedda are a cautionary tale for any actor: If you take a gig with Roundabout, especially at the American Airlines, you run a great risk turning in a bad performance, no matter your talent level or past experiences."
Please.
Don't blame Roundabout as the blame falls squarilly on Parker's performance. Ian Rickson, though misguided in certain choices in this production, had no chance directing Parker. She was determined to play the same role she's played on stage...well...for as long as I've seen her on stage (Proof, Reckless, Dead Man...). Her Hedda was Nancy Botwin doing Hedda Gabler: a modern woman transposed to the nineteenth century. In essence: an anachronism.
And yes Jordan, you're right. Blanchett's Hedda was mind blowingly good (pun intended...) as was Eve Best's Hedda not long before in London. Parker's failure was only exasperated by that fact.
I'm glad to see Parker come back to the stage in a new play...but you'll never catch me near anything she's doing remotely considered "classical" ever again.
#15Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:46pmOh. Good thing that it was only Mary-Louise Parker in that production and she made every. single. decision.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#16Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:49pmI think you meant exacerbated.
#17Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:50pmHer failure was pretty irritated.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#18Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:52pm
"Whizzer, I remember at the time she said that she had talked to Laura Linney about the bad press (mentioning how they were both discouraged to do theatre in NY), which has an interesting relation to your comment since Linney had just gotten terrible reviews for LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES at the American Airlines too! So you definitely have a point."
...ugh. And she made that horribly obnoxious comment about she and Linney being tv/film people who do theater but "don't be mean to us or we won't come back!!"
MLP being obnoxious
#19Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 9:59pm
Thank you Phillis...yes I did. Oh, and "squarely."
Kad: what the hell are you talking about? My comment was directed to MLP's failed performance, not that failure of a production.
#20Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 10:31pmIt's called "THE SNOW GEESE"? My first reaction was, it's a comedy, right? Like Springtime for Hitler? What an awful title.
#21Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 11:11pm
Sorry, I had initially understood your post as laying the blame squarely on Parker for the production's overall failure.
I still think that the director and Roundabout's artistic directors deserve blame for not having the balls to do anything.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
FishermanBob
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/9/12
#22Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 11:18pm
"...ugh. And she made that horribly obnoxious comment about she and Linney being tv/film people who do theater but "don't be mean to us or we won't come back!!" "
Play, if you are going to use quotes, then one has the expectation that's her quote, not some nonsense you made up and threw quotes around. Her point was not that she wouldn't come back if people didn't give her good reviews but was in reference to things being said about supposed backstage behaviors and feuds that she felt weren't true and weren't fair. The point was that she does theater cause she loves it and seeing things like that affected her love for doing it. But she wasn't saying she wouldn't come back.
You want to take issue with her or her performance, fine, but don't make up imaginary quotes to do it.
#23Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/10/13 at 11:22pm
Play Esq, Of course I what a said was written tongue in cheek. I'm only half joking when I say there is a curse on the American Airlines though. For the past 5 years, with few exceptions, there has been clunker after clunker. Even on the greatest stage actresses of our generation, Cherry Jones, had her talents muted in Mrs. Warren's Profession.
Parker was playing it horribly modern, but as Kad mentions it's the job of the director and Roundabout to take note and attempt to fix the product they are handing to the public.
For why Hedda was so bad? Well other than Parker being just awful the rest of the cast and production were no great shakes either. Michael Cerveris gave the most respectable performance, but it felt dull compared to the other jarringly bad performances.
Peter Stormare was particularly bad, and like Constantine in J&H right now, he used 10 different accents over the course of the evening.
Everything was so inept and the text felt so buried under everything. If I didn't know better I would have walked out thinking it was a terribly written play.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Tom-497
Featured Actor Joined: 12/18/05
#24Mary-Louise Parker Back to Broadway in MTC's THE SNOW GEESE
Posted: 4/11/13 at 12:32am
That Roundabout version of Hedda was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on a stage. I'm relying on my imperfect memory, but I think the biggest problem was that none of the main roles was played in a manner that resembled any human behavior I've come across. (Helen Carey's low-key, touching performance as the put-upon aunt was the only good one I can recall.)
Peter Stormare was probably the worst of a very bad bunch -- he came off like a parody of a 1970s swinger, quite similar to Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd's "wild and crazy guys" on Saturday Night Live.
And Mary Louise Parker's Hedda came across as insane from start to finish. In addition, her romantic interplay with Lovborg was so obvious and overly sexualized that her husband (Michael Cerveris) would have had to be literally blind not to notice it. (I may be exaggerating things at this late date, but I seem to remember that one conversation in the living room culminated in Lovborg sticking his hand up Hedda's dress and apparently fingering her.)
I definitely still remember that, as the lights went up for intermission, I had to make a conscious effort to close my mouth -- I had actually been gaping in disbelief.
Having said all that, I also remember that the show was often entertaining and had a lot of vitality -- I don't recall ever being bored.
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