Theater Review by Carole Di Tosti . . . .
Marching from its premiere at the Public Theater in 2022 to its Broadway premiere, SUFFS, with book, music, and lyrics by Shaina Taub is now running at The Music Box. The Public’s production was received enthusiastically and extended three times. In its upgrade, the two-act musical has been beneficially tightened and refined for maximum excitement and power. Considering that the Dobbs decision overturned Roe vs. Wade two months after it closed in April of 2022, SUFFS’ themes remind us we must continue to be vigilant and vote out those who would overturn constitutional “guarantees” we once thought were firmly established.
Aptly directed by Leigh Silverman, with choreography by Mayte Natalio, and music supervision and direction by Andrea Grody, the most vital of the musical numbers focuses on conflicts in the movement that began in 1848 at Seneca Falls. Progress was slow-walked because Susan B. Anthony, like her mentee Carrie Chapman Catt of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), believed that men should be tactfully begged to accept women’s equality.
The play opens with the conservative, prim Jenn Colella as Carrie Chapman Catt, who addresses an audience of men in the song, “Let Mother Vote.” Her humorous, benign approach indicates how the women’s movement used genteel, feminine stratagems to “state by state, slow and steady, not until the country’s ready,” persuade white politicians and their constituents to give women the vote.
Meanwhile, the fiery, younger, brilliant Ph.D. Alice Paul (Shaina Taub is an acting tour de force), counters Catt’s old guard beliefs (“Finish the Fight”). Paul wants to apply the techniques she picked up from England’s women’s suffrage movement. Tired of waiting, she insists that protests, marches, and hunger strikes will readily propel NAWSA toward immediate success.
Thus, begins the exposé of the problems in the women’s movement which SUFFS reveals happened between 1913 and the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment, when Paul, Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), Polish union organizer Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck), glamorous socialite Inez Milholland (the mesmerizing Hannah Cruz), Doris Stevens (Nadia Dandashi), and others apply political pressure to achieve their goals.
After Paul sets up a headquarters in Washington, DC (designer Riccardo Hernandez creates the appropriately threadbare, dingy workspace), she gathers friends and allies to organize and successfully conduct the women’s first march on the nation’s capital (“Find a Way”). On the day of the protest, another conflict erupts. Prominent Black journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells (the fine Nikki M. James), confronts Paul about having to march in the back to avoid offending the southern women.
In the powerful “Wait My Turn,” James’ Wells confronts the hypocrisy of the NAWSA, which prioritizes gender over race. Nevertheless, Wells’ friend Mary Church Terrell (Anastaćia McCleskey), and Mary Church’s daughter (Laila Erica Drew), encourage each other to “. . . as we climb, onward and upward we go.”
The women march with solidarity and vitality despite the “hooligans” who “spit and jeer, grabbing my hair, smacking my rear.” The police ignore the brutality and refuse protection, so the suffragists (changed from the diminutive suffragettes), consider retreating and suspending the march. In an unsettling scene, starkly choreographed with mime and slow motion, the women take the blows from the “hooligans.” With their show of stamina and courage, they win the day and draw others to their cause, except for the affable, jocular President Woodrow Wilson (the excellent Grace McLean). He plies them with excuses and promises to work with them in the future (“Ladies”). Wilson’s motive is to discourage them, siphon their hope and thwart their momentum.
The rancor augments between Catt and Paul (“The Convention Part I & II,” “This Girl”). Paul and her allies are kicked out of NAWSA for taking a stand in front of Catt and the national press, “declaring political warfare on Wilson and his party.” This is viewed as a dangerous affront because the country is on the brink of World War I. However, wealthy socialite Alva Belmont (the glorious Emily Skinner), champions Alice Paul’s newly formed National Woman’s Party (NWP), as she sings the winning “Alva Belmont.” The wealthy Belmont knows the NWP’s pluck, determination and leadership will overcome Catt and Wilson’s conservatism.
As the NWP intensifies the fight in their chic headquarters across from the White House, they conduct campaigns against Wilson (“Show Them Who You Are,” “The Campaign”). Encouraged by Paul, Lucy, Doris, and Inez travel the country engaging citizens to vote against Wilson. It is then that Paul is stopped in her tracks and the movement is halted by a dire event. Once again, Paul and the activists must leap over this terrible setback to continue their journey toward equality (“How Long”).
SUFFS’ superb all-female cast thrills. Paul Tazewell’s snazzy period costumes and Charles G. LaPointe’s hair and wig design clothe the ladies and two men. Tsilala Brock portrays Dudley Malone, the budding fiancé of Doris Stevens. Grace McLean’s expressive and nattily dressed President Wilson exposes him as an opportunistic, hypocritical, mendacious, political craven.
The cast pulls out all the stops, seamlessly effecting Silverman’s staging of the humorous (“Great American Bitch”), the suspenseful (“The Young Are at the Gates”), the frightening (“Report”), and the rousing (“Finish the Fight,” “Keep Marching”). At the conclusion, the ensemble marches in place against a neutral backdrop with lighting by Lap Chi Chu. Their joyous singing and movements symbolize their spirited movement from 1920 into the present to stir us to march with them in the ongoing struggle.
Taub syncs her uplifting music and lyrics (acutely delivered by Jason Crystal’s sound design), to make one want to sing and chant with the cast. Importantly, SUFFS encourages us to never give up the fight against those who would remove the freedoms we enjoy or silence our voices.
SUFFS. Open Run at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue). Two hours, and thirty minutes with one intermission. www.suffsmusical.com
Photos: Joan Marcus
