Redwood, the new musical at the Nederlander Theatre that marks the return of Idina Menzel to Broadway after nearly a decade, has her legions of fans buzzing with excitement that she is back but for me, not a fan, the real star of the show is the spectacular staging that creates a magical forest filled with the mighty trees and a starry night sky.
Leaving a bitterly cold winter night I was transported thanks to Jason Ardizzone-West’s giant tree that dominates the stage and Hana S. Kim’s video designs that lift us above the forest floor high into the sky. The story is clichéd — a depressed middle-aged woman unable to recover after the death of her only child the year before, possibly by suicide at 23, and whose grief is straining her marriage, gets in her car and drives from New York City to California where she finds sanctuary and healing in the forest. But even a strong story would likely take second notice to this technically ambitious staging of more than 1,000 LED panels that create gorgeous panoramic vistas.
Redwood has been a passion project for Menzel for about 15 years. Her inspiration was the story of Julia Butterfly Hill, an environmental activist who spent 738 days living in a 1,000-year-old redwood in the 1990s to fight a timber company’s intention of chopping it down for logging. Menzel became obsessed with the story and called director Tina Landau to suggest they collaborate and then contributed to the script and songs.
Menzel, a Tony Award-winner for her origination of Elphaba in Wicked, chose to make the story (book by Landau) one of a personal journey rather than about the environment. Jesse is a New York gallery owner who married Mel (De’Adre Aziza), a photojournalist, when her son, Spencer (Zachery Noah Piser), was 3 and Mel loved him as her own. Piser as Spencer appears in the forest in Jesse’s mind and also plays several other characters.
Shortly after her arrival, while standing and walking in awe of the redwoods, she meets two canopy arborists, Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon, right in photo) who teach her to climb, after she pesters them unrelentingly, and finally allow her to spend the night on a platform high up in the tree. It is there, thanks to the videos surrounding her, we experience the majesty and immensity of the forest and, through Scott Zielinski’s consistently perfect lighting, the immense black sky lit by hundreds of tiny white stars.
Menzel’s commitment to Redwood goes beyond her writing, acting and singing. She’s also required to dance on the side of the tree, suspended hundreds of feet in the air swirling in a harness and singing while upside down. Jesse looks euphoric. I hope Menzel is too. It looks fun.
A final contribution Medzel made was finding a songwriter for the contemporary pop sound she envisioned. Landau wanted someone outside the musical theatre world so they searched the Internet and found then 23-year-old Kate Diaz. They made a wise choice. Her 17 songs, for which Laudau shares credit for the lyrics, are beautifully targeted for the moment — “Drive,” “Climb,” “The Stars” —and simply affecting, unlike the usual big Broadway show stoppers. This show is big enough in its size. It would suffer if the songs were big as well.
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