Lisa D’Amour’s colorful mosaic of a community of down-and-outliers comes to Broadway via Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company

In her terrific 2010 play, “Detroit,” Lisa D’Amour showed gimlet-eyed observation, a spiky sense of humor and a vivid feel for a place and people being left behind by the American Dream. In “Airline Highway,” she turns to a larger pocket of luckless folks much lower down the economic ladder, this time on the outskirts of post-Katrina New Orleans. But despite being given a dynamic production with a highly capable cast, this rambling character-driven piece lacks the earlier work’s drive and clarity of purpose. While it’s a vividly populated canvas, the playwright doesn’t do anything much of interest with it. The ensemble in Joe Mantello’s production, which comes to Broadway from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, play characters who either live or congregate at the Hummingbird Motel, a shabby budget dive on the stretch of road connecting the Big Easy to Baton Rouge. Seen from the car park, where the inaction unfolds, this dump is designed with battered realism by Scott Pask, and bathed by Japhy Weideman’s lights in shades that run from soupy dusk through the hangover glaze of morning.