In the spectacularly designed musical “Redwood,” which opened Sunday night in its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, California’s redwood forests are a mystical and maternal place of healing and hope for the human characters onstage. And in this groundbreaking, immersive production, the ancient trees cast the same magical spell over the audience.
Co-conceived by its Tony-winning star, Idina Menzel, and director-playwright-co-lyricist Tina Landau, with music and lyrics by Kate Diaz, “Redwood” is a deeply moving story about Jesse Meyers, a grief-stricken woman who walks away from her life in New York and ultimately finds her eureka moment in Eureka, California. There, she finds peace, inspiration and a reason to survive while living 100 feet above the ground in a 2,000-year-old redwood she calls “Stella.”
As Jesse, Menzel gives a multi-hued, tour de force acting performance that is brittle, unfiltered, anxious, impulsive, heartbreaking and quite funny. Her famously robust voice delivers over and over in the intermissionless two-hour musical, where she never leaves the stage. But Menzel also imbues her songs with great delicacy, heart and emotion, particularly in the numbers “Dear Everyone,” “No Repair” and “Let the Fires Come.”
Menzel may be the show’s human star, but it’s the trees that put “Redwood” on the cutting edge of musical theater innovation.
Diaz has written a film-like, multi-track score that gives angelic voice to the redwoods. Sound designer Jonathan Deans creates the seat-shaking roar of distant falling trees and crackling flames. And media designer Hana S. Kim has created a hyper-realistic animated film and motion-simulating projection design that turns, twists and telescopes upward as the actors move through the stage environment. For SoCal residents, the best way to describe watching “Redwood” is like riding the hang-gliding simulator Soarin’ Over California at Disney California Adventure theme park, but without the piped-in pine aroma.
Landau’s engrossing and fast-moving script keeps some of its surprises to the end, but here are the spoiler-free basics of the plot.
Jesse, a hyper-competent events planner who was voted “most likely to succeed” in third grade, realizes she can no longer cope with her demanding job or her 20-year relationship with wife Mel (the wise, warm and velvet-voiced De’Adre Aziza). A year earlier, they suffered a devastating loss. But while Mel is gradually healing, Jesse’s grief remains an open wound. On an impulse and with no destination in mind, Jesse gets in her car and drives west in search of a place where she can breathe again.
She ends up in Eureka, where she meets redwood tree botanists Finn, a rugged, paternal idealist played by Michael Park, and Becca, a young but iron-willed scientist played by Nkeki Ob-Melekwe. Like Jesse, Finn and Becca have suffered losses, walled off their hearts to protect themselves and found silent solace among the trees. The interdependent redwoods, which have survived more than a century of clear-cutting, wildfires and climate change, are a symbol of the resilience and community these three lonely souls desperately need.
Some of the score’s standout songs are the lyrically clever Jesse/Mel duet “Back Then,” the lilting Jesse/Stella duet “Stella” and “Becca’s Song.” But the score’s best number, sung by Zachary Noah Piser, who plays multiple male characters in the story, is “Still,” a ballad so heartrending that many audience , including me, were wiping away tears.
The musical features orchestrations and arrangements by Diaz; music direction by Haley Bennett; scenery by Jason Ardizzone-West; costumes by Toni-Leslie James; and lighting by Scott Zielinski.
“Redwood” has an honest and profoundly relatable story that’s told in an intimate, unique and breathtaking way. Unlike many new musicals that need more work before they move to Broadway, “Redwood” feels like it’s ready today. And technologically, it feels like the American musical of tomorrow.
‘Redwood’
When: Runs through March 31. Show times vary.
Where: Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: Sold out, but small lots of tickets will be released during the run.
Online: lajollaplayhouse.org/show/redwood
