Idina Menzel: Still defiant of gravity. More than twenty years later evil, The tenacious heroine won’t keep the ground on the Broadway stage. However, instead of having Oz ride a broom, Menzel tied to a climbing seat belt, arching, twisting, and spinning from the trunk of the mammoth-like mahogany-and Tickling with E-Flats. As always, Menzel is pure magic. The performance around her? So wooden.
I don’t care how ridiculed that joke is (Is I the 14th hacker to use it or the only one who lacks self-discipline?). Redwood Rhyme with Deadwood, a derogatory term for people or things that no longer work. Menzel has a lot to pay for. She was probably the greatest wasteful resource on Broadway for decades, making this well-intentioned misfire even more frustrating: they were actually hanging Menzel dry.
Considered by star and writer director Tina Landau Redwood It is a tree fable about trees and sadness, which is the pursuit of every woman seeking healing. The opening is a rather clumsy expo, as Landau offers a scrapbook montage of “Tesseracts” memories: New York gallerist Jesse (Menzel) dating art photographer De’Adre Aziza; ; Raising a son (Zachary Noah Piser); quarrels a lot, causing the son to lose his son due to an overdose – Jesse drove to Western California in despair to find…what is there? She fell asleep in Redwood Forest and the next morning a pair of bewildered canopy botanists discovered her, like a fairy tale princess. Jesse found her purpose! Scale hundreds of feet tall and communicate with nature. Our heroes tangle scientists in the hope of relying on them like they do.
On its first outing on Broadway, composer and colleague Kate Diaz set the opening order of the extension to a short number called “drive” whose lyrics are often difficult to figure out. When you finally grasp a few lines – “I never had a chance to dance in the rain before. / And I never had a chance to breathe such pure air. / Under the infinite sky, I asked myself why…” – You realize the extra The ears should be futile. This kind of factory lyric writing is used to nibble on tiktok, not to deepen the character. Diaz scores less than the album of order-made sound tracks tailored for Menzel’s teenage tremolo and powerful belts, but sound writing is usually muddy, melodic derivatives. It’s a bunch of Taylor Swift’s spoons, now a big piece of Coldplay, maybe a piece or two of Bruno Mars.
Michael Park attracted some songs with the musical’s numbers: playing the grizzly but friendly botanist, cooking with the cow-grass-flavored “Big Tree Religion.” As Park’s young black colleague, the magnetic khaila wilcoxon possesses gorgeous soprano competing with Menzel. In Becca’s Song, she sings the action of rebuilding our broken environment. Of course, Menzel has plenty of chance to shine: the ecstatic national anthem, “The Great Escape,” a provocative ode of sadness called “No Repair” and “In the Leaf”, our multitasking leader lady in safety Bring the swing, turn it upside down, flip it down, and teach the birds a lesson about twisting.
The performer is fascinating, with one or two interesting lines (“I don’t want to be pitiful,” Jesse protests when the scientist learns that she’s sad for her son. But these songs are often generic and static, with the book The quick role matches popular psychology. Landau says in building a central drama that mourns the sudden death of her adult son, she is inspired by her nephew’s drug-related death. Unfortunately, Landau uses care for his aunt’s All the original painful writing and watching the good material. We feel zero about Spencer’s look, except that he gave his birthday rap to his mom as a kid and was reluctant to work. When Jesse tells Becca about When the story of how Spencer died, it sounds like two overworked mothers suffering from drug problems, gave him $2,000 and packed him up to Los Angeles. Do you feel intimate? Maybe you should. Allow The characters become difficult and flawed – even bound, but their arcs can be closed and peaceful only if we really care about them. This gesture is a bamboo when Spencer’s cheerful ghost falls into Jesse The void.
The nearly two hours of running time hints at the storytelling problem. The team couldn’t find a 20-minute trim or thought they couldn’t get rid of the halftime break. I can’t believe that I’m talking about eco-music, but thanks to Yihua, the technology. Video designer Hana S. Kim filled his eyes with acres of sweet leaves and trunks, some of which were captured in the redwood forest and others by CGI. Set designer Jason Ardizzone-West arranged over a thousand LED panels to accommodate this emerald bounty, fanned the game space on the screen and created (at least from the band) iMax-y immersiveness in the green world. A huge semicircular screen rotates to reveal the detailed trunk of the mahogany. You may touch the drama when you sail on the canopy of trees or sail along the fluffy landscapes of Vertigines. The golden rose in the sky, slices of orange and a bunch of black grey particles, reminiscent of the climax forest fire. Scott Zielinski’s agile lighting design (which can undoubtedly be balanced with the surrounding projection) blends abstract emotions with the time of the day; he sends warm sunshine between the set elements , to give the world depth. The onboard stunts were from Melecio Estrella and Bandaloop. They did a great job: No one fell down. Seriously, the vertical crossing of the surface (“perp Walk”, anyone?) is very cool: poetry in the air.
If it is considered a popular orator with nat geo images, Redwood Probably already successful. You still need better songs and richer language. For structures as large and complex as Broadway musicals, it can represent the entire season in this degenerate cultural ecology, which requires a deeper, broader root system. You want the majesty of nature to leave trembling; instead, it feels like staring at a potted plant for 110 minutes.
Redwood | 1 hour 50 minutes. No intermission. | Nederlander Theatre | 208 West 41st Street | 1-800-714-8452 | Buy tickets here
