In Idina Menzel’s new Broadway musical, a show tune about Tikkun Olam soars high
In ‘Redwood,’ a headstrong tree-climber uses Jewish wisdom to inspire and console
Idina Menzel plays Jesse, an ambitious New York art gallery director who heads west after a shocking life event in Redwood Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
By Samuel Eli Shepherd February 13, 2025
In Redwood, a new Broadway musical about a New Yorker heading west after tragedy, a tree takes up most of the stage. The trunk of the titular redwood is a wide semi-circle that extends from the floor all the way up to the stage-lights above. Meanwhile, immersive projections on the back walls create the lush backdrop of a Northern California forest.
Jesse (Idina Menzel) spends the early parts of the play in the forest convincing two seasoned climbers who she meets to help her climb the tree. A shocking life event has knocked her off-course, she explains, and mounting the redwood is her new goal to bring her world back in order. “I can hold a tree pose. I can do a downward dog / Cause I did yoga once, at my old synagogue,” Jesse sings.
It’s a cute joke, and the audience laughed, but the Jewish themes in Broadway’s Redwood extend beyond an off-hand reference to shul. The show about confronting your demons amidst awe-inspiring trees, created by Menzel, Tina Landau and Broadway newcomer Kate Diaz, contains a deeper Jewish message about preserving nature and repairing the world.
Spoilers ahead for Broadway’s Redwood. And fair warning for those afraid of heights!
Teaching Torah in the trees
Early on in Redwood, Jesse butts heads with Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon), a tough-as-bark conservationist with a Ph.D. in forestry. Becca views Jesse as a spoiled city woman out of her element, whereas Jesse is desperate to prove herself to the young environmental warrior.
But when Jesse decides to spend her first night on a canopy midway through her climb, Becca warms up to Jesse, and gives her some rabbinic advice.“Lo Tash’chit,” Becca says, referencing a Biblical principle against destroying nature.
Jesse does a double take. Did Becca just speak Hebrew? “I assumed you’re Jewish,” Becca says. Turns out, Becca’s mother is also Jewish, and she invokes the Torah and Talmud to help guide Jesse on her journey.
A few scenes later, Becca returns to Jesse on the canopy and speaks again about a Jewish concept — this time, it’s Tikkun Olam, or the Jewish concept of repairing the world. In “Becca’s Song,” a moment of inspiration before the show’s fiery climax, Becca shares how the Jewish concept of social justice has informed her life purpose as a conservationist.
“When I was ten, the fires came. / And we lost our house that day. / But my mom kept calm / And told me the story of Tikkun Olam,” sings Becca.
In the chorus, she shares how that experience informed her life mission: “Working hard to save the trees /Is my responsibility / I know what I must do / I gotta leave the world better than the one I came into –.”
The song is both catchy and poignant. Not only is it a window into Becca’s motivations and a rare moment of vulnerability for her character, but it also gives space for Jesse to rebuff and for the characters’ differences to clash.
“At least in my experience,” Jesse whispers, “sometimes repair is not possible.” Jesse then rebukes Becca’s know-it-all attitude, prompting Becca to climb down off the canopy.
Jesse, alone on stage, then reflects on the loss of her 23-year-old son to an overdose a year earlier, which inspired Jesse to uproot her life in New York.
“There is no repair. / No, there is no relief,” Jesse belts out in the play’s most heart-shattering number, “No Relief.” Her son, Spencer, appears as a ghost presence on stage. By juxtaposing two songs about optimism and despair, Landau and Diaz’s lyrics force the audience to reckon with the limits of Tikkun Olam and social justice optimism, and just how much can be fixed in a broken world.
Roots of grief and preservation
Watching Redwood weeks after the Palisades Fires, my mind raced to how Redwood’s opening on Broadway overlapped with real world environmental crises. As the characters twirled on harnesses against the side of the redwood, I also considered how this natural beauty may be lost to climate change, without the show even needing to spell out that message.
The show also sensitively covers loss. As Jesse considers how her adult son fell off track, Menzel masterfully conveys the anguish of someone trying to outrun her emotions. Menzel hides her guilt for Spencer’s death in layers of optimism and ambition. But as the play goes on, her happy costume unravels, revealing raw, naked grief.
When Jesse finally confronts the loss of her son on stage, the theater froze. I hadn’t seen a more tearful audience since I watched Next To Normal, another musical that deals with grieving parents haunted by a phantom son. And while the show would have benefited from some cuts — the show runs nearly two hours, with no intermission, and the first few songs flounder — the final third is riveting.
Evergreen with Jewish themes
Redwood is not only a play where rabbinic wisdom takes root. It also plants seeds in terms of greater representation of Jews of Color on Broadway.
Becca, who is both Black and Jewish, discusses the racism she experiences in the environmentalist community. The reason Becca has a shaved head, for example, is because she couldn’t find a climbing helmet that fit her braids. She and her climbing partner, Finn (Michael Park) are more than just manic pixie tree hippies who help Jesse on her healing journey, but fully realized characters dealing with insecurities of their own.
The Jewish influence in Redwood is more substantial than Yiddish puns or jokes about synagogue yoga. The play deals with serious spiritual themes of how to preserve awesome works of nature in a world desperate to erase them. The play also confronts how to sit shiva then sprout back up again after unimaginable loss.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the opening night of Redwood overlaps with Tu B’shvat, the Jewish birthday of the trees. You wouldn’t expect it, but this play about grief, healing and California redwoods just might be the most Jewish — and most original — show on Broadway this season. Well worth the climb.
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