Redwood
La Jolla Playhouse’s star continues to rise, or maybe it’s that the stars keep shining on La Jolla Playhouse. Having brought in film and stage star Matthew Broderick for Babbitt, they now turn to his musical counterpart, film and stage star Idina Menzel, for a musical about a woman who is literally up a tree. Wracked by grief following the death of her son, Jesse flees her New York job, apartment, and wife Mel, and keeps fleeing until she reaches a patch of private redwood forest overseen by aging hippie Finn and justice-minded Becca. There, she learns a bit about redwoods — they’re tough in a fire, and while their roots are shallow, they stay standing by intertwining them with the roots of their fellow giants — and charms her way onto a platform high up in the canopy. Once there, well — it is California. The Playhouse has done right by Ms Menzel, in part by surrounding her with voices that can hold their own against hers; Nkeki Obi-Melekwe’s “Becca’s Song” comes close to stealing the show, and Zachary Noah Piser makes the very most of his 11 o’clock number. Also by going about as far as they can go with projection; calling the digital forest a backdrop doesn’t do justice to its immersive power. The songs, however, are less consistently good; the cheek-by-jowl juxtaposition of the Boomeresque anthem “A Little Bit Wild” and the poignant lament “Back Then” may have you feeling like you’re watching two different shows. It's not that they have different tones and subjects, it's that they have different qualities of being. And while the concept and resolution work fine, there are moments where the drama falters and the emotion becomes awkward, almost as if the actors aren’t sure they can embrace what they’re portraying. Oh — and there’s a tree. A great big breathtaking tree. You can’t ever see all of it at once, but that’s part of its glory.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, March 31, 2024
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm-4:30pm & 7pm-9:30pm |
| Tuesdays, 7:30pm-10pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm-10pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm-10:30pm |
| Fridays, 8pm-10:30pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm-4:30pm & 8pm-10:30pm |