'Redwood' digs into a couple's twined roots, history

It has been a hair under two years since the pandemic caused "Redwood" to abruptly shut down at the Jungle Theater after just two previews.

In the intervening months, the set for Brittany K. Allen's play about a couple of hip interracial lovers haunted by history sat onstage at the south Minneapolis theater. A film was shot on the same stage. The theater held a reading against the backdrop of the set, covered. A couple even got married on the Jungle stage with the set as witness.

Now, at last, the scenography, designed by Sarah Bahr, will be used for its intended purpose when "Redwood" opens today — knock on wood.

"This play is one big ritual of story and dance and music, and the set is a sacred, temple-like space," said director H. Adam Harris. "It's nice to know that it has been home to joy and healing."

Of course, two years ago seems like the Before Times after a never-ending pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. In the wake of those concurrent events, playwright Allen revisited the play. Is it OK to be laughing at a story in which interracial couple Meg and Drew discover that they have a dark historical connection — Drew's family enslaved Meg's relatives in Kentucky?

"I don't think this is the moment for frivolity around race relations and this play is determinedly chipper in a certain way," Allen said. "But mostly, it was a tonal thing. I was nervous about what it would be like to have a comedy now."

Allen tried to mold it into something that reflected the gravitas of this historic moment but the result ultimately "felt dishonest to the original spirit," she said.

She walked away from the play for six months and then came back to it, doing minimal edits. "Redwood" is a document of its time.

"There's something about it that feels evergreen and true to these specific characters," Allen said. "I have faith that the shape of these clumsy discussions between partners of different races — that clumsiness is still true. I know because I had them again last summer."

She is quick to note that "Redwood," which premiered in 2019 and is named for the world's largest trees that also happen to be connected at their roots, is not autobiographical. But the sparks came from two bits of personal experiences.

About 10 years ago, Allen's aunt began to research the family's genealogy. That quest triggered a lot of resistance in the family, Allen said. Black people were enslaved in America from 1619 to 1865, with another century of sharecropping and Jim Crow to follow. That history includes a lot of dehumanization, rape and trauma.

"We're carrying all of it epigenetically," she said.

Allen also drew from her experience dating people of different backgrounds.

"When I was drafting the play, I was in a relationship with a white man and it was around the time of Mike Brown's murder," Allen said. "I had a lot of charged, difficult conversations with my partner. I was very inarticulate, having a hard time reckoning with history and the present day. You think you've done the work and know the lay of the land and are able to make ironic jokes. But then there's a breaking point, something that comes and forces you to be painfully othered."

Allen said that part of her struggle as a playwright was whether to put a tidy bow on untidy things. America, after all, is still wrestling with its past, a history that is a source of contention at school board meetings and in political circles.

For director Harris, the play couldn't be timelier or more necessary. Living in America and loving the country for him also means reckoning with the truth of history.

"It's a paradox," he said.

"Redwood" also is a bridge play whose production takes the Jungle off the metaphoric pause button. It was chosen by former artistic director Sarah Rasmussen, before she was poached for the same position at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, N.J. The play is now being produced by her successor, Christina Baldwin.

Baldwin loves that Allen's work poses big questions.

"At the core, this play is not just about a romantic relationship between a white man and a Black woman but it has deeper meaning for our community about truly loving and understanding each other," Baldwin said. "What are the stories we tell about our history and how do we inhabit the truth of that history and take that truth with us?"

'Redwood'
By: Brittany K. Allen. Directed by H. Adam Harris.
When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends March 13.
Where: Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S., Mpls.
Protocol: Vaccine or negative test, along with masks, required.
Tickets: Pay-as-you-are ($45 recommended), jungletheater.org.