Idina Menzel returns to Broadway as Jesse, a New York gallery owner who, out of grief for the death of her son, leaves her wife and her life, drives cross country, and winds up spending several restorative days on a redwood tree. Does this sound substantial enough for a Broadway musical? But a star can work wonders. In this case, I don’t mean Menzel, as welcome as she is. I mean the tree.
“Redwood,” which opened tonight at the Nederlander, features a tree that’s extraordinary in two different ways. Through the set, projections, light and sound, the designers envelope us in the tree’s majesty, a work of stunning stagecraft that for a few moments even elicits something close to the sort of ineffable feeling of awe one gets in actual Nature.
And then there is the creative team’s use of facts about redwoods to prompt some enchanting metaphors.. The roots of a redwood, to pick one memorable example, are surprisingly shallow, but they intertwine with the roots of the other redwoods in the forest, and those connections are what keeps these trees hundreds of feet tall from toppling over. That fact gets a song, called “Roots.” There are many more surprising facts about redwoods – and seemingly a song for each one.
That awesome and fascinating tree turns “Redwood” into a kind of poetry, albeit a lyrical poem rather than a narrative one. Which is a sensitive way of saying, no, “Redwood” is not a wholly satisfying Broadway musical, despite those striking visuals, as well some unusual vertical choreography and the glorious voices of the five talented cast members, who make the most of Broadway newcomer Kate Diaz’s 19 mostly serviceable musical numbers.
“Redwood” was Menzel’s idea, inspired by the true story of a woman named Julia Butterfly Hill who lived in such a tree for two years. Hill was not there, however, to recover from personal loss but to prevent the tree from being chopped down by a timber company.
Menzel enlisted a collaborator for her idea, Tina Landau, the director whose Broadway credits include SpongeBob SquarePants (for which she was Tony nominated), Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play” and the forthcoming “Floyd Collins.” The two apparently felt that the true story would make a fine documentary, but that a musical needed more. It was the tragic death of Landau’s 23-year-old nephew from an accidental overdose, and her reaction to it, that provided the fictional character’s motivation.
At the approach of the one year anniversary of the death of her son Spencer (Zachary Noah Piser, whom we see in flashbacks), Jesse spontaneously decides to just get in her car and drive, without telling her wife Mel (an underutilized De’Adre Aziza) who spends much of the show leaving a series of unreturned voice messages. Jesse winds up at the redwood forest, and runs into two canopy botanists, Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon), who are there to survey a particular tree, which Finn calls 237, but that Jesse will eventually name Stella. (We’re made to understand that Stella communicated that name to Jesse.) Jesse manages to persuade Finn to let her climb the tree with them, and eventually (implausibly), stay on the platform they built high up on Stella.
Becca is vociferously opposed to this breach of protocol. Wilcoxon gets a vibrant song, “Little Redwood” that traces the 2,000-year history of the redwood starting from a seed the size of a tomato seed (“Human history’s growing pains/never shake the little redwood’s strength/ through thousands of years and billions of lives/the little redwood/survives’) — the point of which is: Respect the tree.
But Finn, who lost his twin brother to a motorcycle accident, believes that the tree will help heal Jesse, as it did him, as he elaborates in the song “Big Tree Religion” (“When you look down from the crown/and there’s no one else around/a weight lifts, time shifts/Can’t be explained by scientists.”)
And heal it does. Two of Menzel’s songs:
The Great Escape, which begins with Jesse’s amused and amusing verse about her nerves
Oh my god, it’s kind of hard to breathe.
Will you remember me? –
The city girl who died hugging a tree.
but then turns to wonder
later, “In The Leaves”
These are fine songs that showcase Menzel’s vocal gifts; Diaz was commissioned to write for Menzel’s voice. It’s even more impressive that she sings some of this swinging from ropes, and even upside down.
It’s not excessive to have a show built around a fan-favored performer whose memorable characters Maureen (in Rent), Elphaba (in Wicked) and Elsa (in Frozen) each brought us enduring powerhouse songs. But this creates expectations. I didn’t hear any such potentially lasting songs in “Redwood.” As well-delivered as they were, they started sounding the same to me.
Still, near the end of “Redwood,” Jesse puts her arms around Stella, and then jokes: “Oy, I’ve become my worst nightmare: A tree-hugger.” Now is admittedly not the ideal moment politically for a show about a literal tree hugger. Whether or not that is in itself an argument for doing it, “Redwood” seems likely to make tree-huggers of us all.
Redwood
Nederlander
Running time: 110 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $80 – $280 (Digital lottery $49, rush $44)
Book by Tina Landau; Music, orchestration and arrangement by Kate Diaz; Lyrics by Kate Diaz and Tina Landau; Conceived by Tina Landau and Idina Menzel; Additional contributions by Idina Menzel
Directed by Tina Landau.
Vertical Movement & Vertical Choreography by Melecio Estrella, artistic director of BANDALOOP
Scenic design by Jason Ardizzone-West, video design by Hana S. Kim, costume design by Toni Leslie James, lighting design by Scott Zielinski, sound design by Jonathan Deans, wig design by Matthew Armentrout, dream choreography by Jennifer Weber., music supervision Tom Kitt
Cast: Idina Menzel as Jesse, De’Adre Aziza as Mel, Michael Park as Finn, Zachary Noah Piser as Spencer and Khaila Wilcoxon as Becca, with Daniel Brackett, Bradley Dean, Veronica Otim and Jessica Phillips.
Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made
