By Lucy Komisar
The best part of “Redwood” is the realistic climbing and aerial dancing off and around the trunk of the massive tree. The vertical movement that blends contemporary dance and climbing was created by Melicio Estrella of the dance company Bandaloop. The performers use harnesses and ropes and instead of just climbing up, they move out and soar and twist like circus acrobats. The moments when Idina Menzel and other actors climb and fly out over the audience are thrilling.
Another star is Hana S. Kim, who did the brilliant video projections of the forest, sky, sunsets and other scenery. Fluttering leaves that seem to speak are stunning. A forest fire is menacing.
The show stopper is a song performed by Khaila Wilcoxon as the naturalist, Becca. After a big fire that destroyed their home, “My mom said, “We must look for light/ The glistening shards in this dark night, /cause from the ashes, comes rebirth./ It’s up to us to heal the earth.” And, “The shining truth of why I’m here/ Working hard to save the trees is my responsibility.”
The rest of the music by Kate Diaz is the typical pop song style of this era, not my style but a favorite of the time. Most of Menzel’s voice is loud and uninteresting, only occasionally moving into a higher musical register.
The show was inspired by the story of real-life environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill, among the few people who reached the crown of a giant redwood. She lived on a six by eight platform in a 200-foot-tall, 1,000-year-old California redwood tree for two years starting in 1997 to protest the logging practices of big timber companies
Her story and Becca’s story should have been the script of this play.
But book writer Tina Landau wrote a static woke soap opera. She is also the director. There is a lot of boring stuff about the conflicts between an arty lesbian couple, New York gallery owner Jesse (Menzel) and photographer Mel (De’Adre Aziza), along with some occasionally interesting lectures on botany by naturalist Finn (Michael Park).
The neurotic Jesse (she and Mel are in couples therapy) has driven to California in an attempt to deal with her yet unexplained misery. Mel constantly phones to nag her. Montages of Mel’s photos on the black protest movement underlines that she is black, though that is never mentioned as an element in her relationship with white Jesse.
In California, Jesse wanders into a redwood forest where two naturalists, Finn and Becca, order her to leave because she is there without permission. Except she doesn’t, keeps pressing them to let her stay a bit, explains she is in psychological difficulties, which persuades Finn (64, with tattooed arms, grad of a California university) to keep bending the rules till she’s allowed to climb up the giant trunk. Becca loudly protests to no avail.
In fact, there’s a lot of screaming in this play, Jesse and Mel, Becca and Finn. And a woke message about the redwood standing so tall with shallow roots because the roots spread out and intertwine with other trees so they all support each other! Jesse names the tree Stella and declares, “In your arms I feel safe again.”
The script is further ruined by trite dialogue like, “We are so not Hamptons people,” “I’m not a therapy person,” and, wait for it, “We are not guys, we’re not girls.” People? Joke about the Long Island Expressway. “Your plates say New York – did you really drive—?
JESSE: All the way from the Big NYC – was actually raised on Long Island, you know “Strawng Island” – my accent really comes out after a glass of wine. “How was the traffic on the LIE?” “Oh my god it was bumpada bumpada” – Well, it’s really “bumper to bumper,” but I always said “bumpada bumpada.” Is this SNL?
And, the worst, from Becca, which may or may not be a parody, “95% of California’s old-growth forests were cut down so generations of white cis male corporations could make their billions off indigenous land.”
Historically, the adjective/prefix “cis” was used in chemistry as an antonym of “trans“ when distinguishing certain similar molecules. More recently, people who call themselves “trans” (ditch birth gender for the other one) adopted “cis” as a dismissive label for most of us who are fine with how we were born. Probably the loggers, like most people, were also ok with their birth bodies, but why does that matter? Are America’s oligarchs driven by how they think about their privates? Or the desire to accumulate cash? What would Marx say? Joke.
Becca is black and has a shaved head. She explains she cut off her hair because her braids would not fit in a helmet not made for black hair. Are there other hairstyles for blacks besides braids or bald? Nina Simone?
Turns out Jesse’s son Spencer (a very fine Zachary Noah Piser), did poorly at university in California, doesn’t want to work, changed his name to Marcel, indicating he was a mime and wouldn’t talk to anyone. Jesse says he “just couldn’t launch.” Though he apparently still had culture. In California he overdoses and is the reason for Jesse’s guilt, misery and trip to the place of her sorrow. There’s never a word about Spencer’s father, the presumed cis-male.
The play allegedly inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill is a grievous failure to launch. It is a fake “woke” play that fails to tell the serious story of how corporate loggers threatened the gorgeous redwoods.
“Redwood.” Book by Tina Landau. Music by Kate Diaz, lyrics by Kate Dias and Tina Landau. Directed by Dina Landau. Vertical Movement and choreography by Melicio Estrella of Bandaloop. Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st St, NYC. Runtime 110 minutes. Opened Feb 13, 2025.