Climbing a tree, nourishing the soul
Theater director Tina Landau seamlessly combines family pedigree and Jewish values
Tina Landau is having quite a year.
She opened two shows on Broadway this season, in itself a remarkable feat. But what makes it extraordinary is that she wrote and directed both.
“Floyd Collins” is in previews at Lincoln Center, but the play I really want to talk about is “Redwood.” It is the most positive Jewish play in decades. “Parade,” “Prayers for the French Republic,” “Leopoldstadt,” even “Fiddler on the Roof” are rooted in antisemitism. But “Redwood” is centered on how basic tenets of Judaism can lift the human spirit; how it can nourish the neshamah.
It’s the first thing I mentioned to Ms. Landau during our phone conversation. I wondered if that dichotomy had occurred to her. “Not exactly like that,” she said.
“I mean, of course, I am Jewish, and when I created the character of Jesse, I just naturally and organically made her Jewish because I am, and so much of me is in that character.”
As it turned out, there is one especially large — and devastatingly sad — chunk of Tina in the character.
Jesse (Idina Menzel) is a grieving New York art gallery owner. She’s having difficulty coping with the upcoming first anniversary of her son’s death by overdose. So she leaves it all behind — her gallery, her wife — gets in her car, and drives.
She runs out of road in Eureka, California, home to a large stand of redwood trees. There she meets Becca, a mixed-race Ph.D. in forest molecular genetics and restoration, and Finn, an arborist. They are in an area restricted to the general public, studying carbon sequestration, and try to shoo her out.
The plot suffers in summary, but Jesse ultimately gets to spend time climbing a giant redwood and finding a measure of peace. But the play is given deeper meaning by Becca, whose mother is Jewish.
“Lo tashchit,” she tells Jesse, who is about to begin her first climb. When Jesse seems confused, Becca adds, “I assumed you’re Jewish and you’d know this incredibly common Jewish expression.”
Lo tashchit refers to a Jewish ethical principle about preserving nature and avoiding destruction. Later, Becca explains tikkun olam, about the Jewish responsibility to repair the world.
It’s Jewish wisdom Jesse takes with her to the canopy that allows her to deal with her ghosts.
The idea originated with Ms. Menzel, who’d read about Julia Butterfly Hill, an environmental activist who spent more than two years 200 feet up in a redwood to protest a lumber company’s plans to cut it down.
“I’m guessing this was about 15 years ago, roughly,” Ms. Landau said. “The funny thing is neither Idina nor I remember exactly what year it was. But it’s somewhere in that range. We’d known each other from around the theater community and wanted to work together.
“When we met, Idina told me the story [about Butterfly Hill] and I said, well, that’s funny, because I’m obsessed with trees. I’d already looked at a couple of pieces or possible adaptations that involve someone being in a tree. So we connected on that kind of odd, unusual interest we both had.”
Ms. Landau and Ms. Menzel worked on it on and off — mostly off because they each had other projects — until the pandemic hit. “I realized I wouldn’t be directing in the foreseeable future,” Ms. Landau told me. “So I called Idina and asked, ‘Do you still have an interest in this?’ She said something like ‘What took you so long?’ And off we were.”
Within weeks, Tina sent Idina “three different scenarios, three- to five-page treatments,” trying to figure out how and why a woman might cross the country and land in a tree. But the pair were uncertain what road to take — until tragedy struck.
“About a week later, I found that my young nephew had passed unexpectedly,” Ms. Landau said.” He died of a drug overdose. “I was very close to him. As I recovered from that and was able to look again at what I was working on, I realized that kind of answered the question of what I want to write about.”
At some point, the musical’s Jewish themes entered the mix. “I don’t remember when exactly,” Ms. Landau said. “But tikkun olam was a concept I was aware of; it was very moving and meaningful to me. While I’m not observant in any traditional way, my sister, Kathy, the person who lost her son, is.
“She has a big plaque that says tikkun olam on it in her home. I learned about that many, many years ago, and it’s always been present and a palpable kind of influence in my family. The notion that we are here to do good and to help others and to do mitzvah and to be fully in the world, I would say that philosophy has been embedded in my family always.”
When it comes to family, Ms. Landau hit the genetic lottery. Her parents, Ely and Edie, were major Hollywood producers, as was her brother, Jon. Jon, who worked closely with James Cameron, won an Oscar for producing “Titanic” and was nominated for two more, for “Avatar” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Tina’s sister, Kathy Landau, is the executive director of Symphony Space, an important performing arts venue on the Upper West Side.
“Both my parents were the children of immigrants,” Ms. Landau said. “Their parents were observing Jews, though not Orthodox. My parents, I think, were of the generation where they didn’t deny their Judaism, but wanted more than anything to be American.
“We celebrated the Jewish holidays, but we also celebrated Christmas. And they named their kids John, Kathy, and Tina. We’re not Sarah, David, and Rachel. It’s something I was always aware of growing up. It’s like, what is this form of Judaism? And it felt almost more cultural than religious.
“But they also produced ‘The Chosen’ by Chaim Potok and did a film commemorating Israel’s 33rd birthday. And, yes, they also did ‘The Pawnbroker.’”
Ms. Landau knew from an early age that she wanted to be a director working in live theater. “I was a little bit of a black sheep in my family, because everyone else was so film-oriented,” she said.
Frankly, I told Ms. Landau that until very recently I thought the only thing a stage director did was hire actors, hand them a script, and tell them where to stand.
“I think that’s what most people think,” she said with a chuckle. “I think of myself as the captain of a ship that I’m getting a lot of people to come on. My job is to articulate a course and set sail in a direction everyone can get on board with, not just in terms of where the actors stand, but how they understand their characters, how they build an arc within a show and, yeah, down to where they’re facing on the stage.”
Ms. Landau understands that her timing as she entered her field couldn’t have been much better. “I feel very fortunate to sort of come of age when female directors have broken the glass ceiling of Broadway and are more prevalent and welcome than they have been in centuries before,” she said.
And yet Ms. Landau has said she feels like an outsider as a woman, as a Jew, and as a lesbian. I ask her if she still feels that way.
“I think those of us of various identities outside of the predominant white male identity always feel a little other. That’s something I certainly felt more of when I was growing up and through my young adult life. Thank goodness, in many ways things have changed, so I can feel more open and out and at home in the world. But I think that feeling never really goes away.”
I ask if that feeling of otherness propelled her career in an I’m-going-to-show them way.
“I’ve never really had that consciously,” she said. “I’ve just always had a burning desire to make things. And, I think, you know, feeling a little isolated in my imagination, I’ve dealt with that by making things and creating my own world and my own stories, where I found hope and refuge and passion.”
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