CAMERON KELSALL: The costuming in Redwood, and the cultural milieu, is certainly more Patagonia than Prada.

DF: Indeed, though really: isn’t Redwood essentially “Patagonia-by-Prada”? And therein lies the problem in a nutshell.

CK: There’s nothing wrong with a great fleece, but I found myself fleeced by this endless cavalcade of catharsis porn.

DF: Okay, well—that’s probably enough about our closets. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, let’s talk about the show.
It’s a quite simple story, really. Jesse (Idina Menzel) is a middle-aged-but-still-youthful Manhattanite who has been more successful recently in business — she runs a gallery that features works by female artists — than in her personal life — she has grown alienated from her wife Mel, due in part to a personal tragedy that will become clearer as the action goes on. Though Jesse is anything but outdoors-y—she laughs off the idea of “tree-huggers”–-somehow she finds herself in a redwood forest. Mentored by two bona-fide tree huggers, Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon), she undergoes a transformation which she vows will culminate in a kind of mystical uniting with the magnificent redwood tree she names “Stella.” (Cue final scene from Daphne; also, Marlon Brando crying out for Kim Hunter.

CK: If that plot summary doesn’t make it abundantly clear, the only things that the creators of this musical–Tina Landau (libretto and direction) and Kate Diaz (score and lyrics), who conceived the story along with Menzel–embrace more fervently than trees are clichés. Over the course of 100 minutes, we get all of them: urban alienation, marital fault lines, addiction and parental woes, loss and grief. Landau and Diaz filter them all through Jesse’s perspective, to the point where the musical essentially becomes a one-woman show that just happens to have four other people milling around. Much has been made of Menzel’s stamina and the demands of the role–she basically never leaves the stage, and she sings 12 of the musical’s 19 songs–but her primacy comes at the expense of everything else. I came away knowing virtually nothing about the people who make up a large chunk of Jesse’s life, or about Jesse herself.

DF: To be fair, there’s a lot in Redwood that will please many audience members–especially fans of Menzel, whose fey, flower-child-meets-PTA-mom charm is well served here. Her deep sincerity is never in doubt, and her vocal chops are in fine working order. The metallic edge that has always been present in her tone doesn’t enchant me, but it’s absolutely a star sound, and the virtuosic generosity is the real thing.

CK: At the same time, much of Jesse’s music is undistinguished, coupling bland melodies to vaguely aphoristic lyrics. The songs that stuck with me after we left the Nederlander Theatre–and there weren’t many–all belonged to the secondary characters. Mel, a photographer, gets a lovely number called “Looking Through This Lens,” about capturing a moment in life. De’Adre Aziza sings it beautifully and brings a touching grace to the stock role of long-suffering partner. The tersely named “Becca’s Song” offers a showcase for Wilcoxon’s superb vocals, and Zachary Noah Piser, as Jesse and Mel’s troubled son, marries poignant acting choices to a soaring delivery in “Still.”

DF: I agree about the score — pleasant enough in the moment but forgotten soon after — and especially about the other three cast members. Not only are they exceptional singers, generating at least as much vocal mastery as Menzel–these are also characters worth spending more time with. They, at least, have a genuine commitment to the redwoods.

CK: It would be an interesting angle to really home in on the decision of a solipsistic city dweller to flee to the forest in search of herself, only to disrupt the lives of the people who are genuine stewards of the land. But I don’t think the show’s roots run that deep.

DF: Let’s also point out the other star of Redwood: the scenic design (by Jason Ardizzone-West, with video by Hana S. Kim, and lighting by Scott Zielinski). The mammoth tree apparently growing out of the Nederlander stage, coupled with breathtaking and often frequently-shifting imagery is the real showstopper–nowhere more so than when Jesse, Finn, and Becca, strapped into harnesses, ascend the heights.
Yet it’s also a moment that betrays a flaw at the center of Redwood. As much as the audience cheers on the performers for their daring, no one would believe for a minute that this is actual climbing–it’s a clever, safe simulacrum. It’s also an apt metaphor for Jesse herself, whose commitment to the forest is, as you say, temporary. For all the earnestness on display here, Jesse isn’t going to spend her life in nature—she’s a privileged urbanite who had a memorable vacation experience. Redwood itself, meant to be a paean to back-to-naturism, could hardly feel more manufactured and synthetic.
But maybe the audience doesn’t care. After all, they’re not climbing redwoods; they’re sitting in a Broadway theater.

CK: Well, David, you’ll always have your childhood memories. And Kim Novak.