Redwood NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (12)
See it if Wonderful characters take us on a journey from the painful past to an unexpected present. Moving and thoughtful, with a brilliant ending.
Don't see it if Patience needed to digest a lot of content, maybe a bit too much. But great direction & acting held my interest and made it all fit.
See it if you like thought-provoking well-written dialog that mixes humor with some deep racial issues within a family mixed-marriage situation.
Don't see it if you don't like a play that makes you think or consider racial issues. 100+ minutes, no intermission.
See it if You like plays that blend comedy and drama. You like plays that deal with the muddy and ugly issues of ancestors.
Don't see it if You want a full comedy or full drama. Read more
See it if You are looking for a play that will both entertain and challenge you.
Don't see it if You don't like silly and profound mixed together. Read more
See it if You like discovering new plays with fresh voices at the helm.
Don't see it if You don’t like the idea of finding humor in slavery. Read more
See it if Allen's neat hat trick of a play starts out as a rom-com & morphs into a complex drama around race, culpability, genealogy & forgiveness
Don't see it if It takes Allen some time to set her tone but once there it moves at a clip asking us to follow her intuitively The payoff is quite moving
See it if Black-White inter-racial relationship gets complicated: genealogy project identifies the White partner's ancestor as owner of slaved people.
Don't see it if Black-White American history of racism and anti-Blackness, family drama, some uneven acting, writing could tighten up. Read more
See it if you want to see a thoughtful play in which, as Faulkner wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past."
Don't see it if you'd like a play that undertakes and develops a deeper examination of its intriguing premise. Read more
Critic Reviews (6)
“With its four unforgettable final words, 'Redwood' (the play is named for one of America’s oldest, tallest, most resilient conifers) dares us to listen to the past and come to terms with our nation’s own fraught family tree.”
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" "Redwood" is far from being a perfect play; its brief-ish running time is, arguably, too crowded with developments and most of the characters could use more detail and shading."
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“This play will challenge you to probe the painful pasts of people whose remarkable strength resembles ‘Redwood’–but you can also expect to laugh along with fantastic characters whose resilience relies on humor as a survival strategy. It is a comedy, after all.”
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"The presentation—in the midst of a sweaty gym class, music blaring, all the others outpacing Stevie —might be comical, yet the idea is anything."
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If an audience can willingly get past the contrivance that the distant relative Stevie meets over coffee, a young white man whose family generations ago once owned (and fathered!) slaves in Stevie’s family, and who just so happens to be the live-in boyfriend of Stevie’s niece Meg, then the audience will have a good time. The four leads of Meg, her boyfriend Drew, her mom Beverly, and Beverly’s twin brother Stevie are written so well. We care so much about each of them that the revelation that they are intertwined by the horrific tale of a plantation owner that loved his slave but was not above slashing her tendons when she tried to run away sets a tone that should be devoid of all humor.
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“...this is the play for all to see, for all to understand the struggles of our interracial planet! You will laugh your way to understanding the knowledge and beauty of our world. This is the perfect ensemble. The cast and crew work together in stylized harmony to bring this gift to us.”
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