By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“)
The Public Theater has enjoyed a well deserved reputation as a proving grounds for works that have later found great fame on Broadway. Some of these groundbreaking shows include Hair, A Chorus Line, Fun Home and Hamilton.
Add to that list Suffs, which premiered at The Public in 2022 – an all-female ensemble show that recently won two Tony Awards for show creator Shaina Taub.
Suffs, which is a modern shortening of the term “suffragist” is Taub’s brainchild, a retelling of the historic struggle for women’s right to vote and equality under the law. While most of the campaign is set in the past century in the years between 1910 and 1920, a small portion of the action late in Act II also takes place approximately 50 years later as a way of tying ends together.
As Lin-Manuel Miranda accomplished in Hamilton, Taub retells a pivotal period in American history with Suffs. While Hamilton bore the yoke of a heavily male cast designed to relate the story of the founding fathers during revolutionary times, Suffs unapologetically tells the story of the struggle for suffragism from the female perspective with actresses playing all the roles. It makes sense. This is a story largely about female figures and its focus is squarely on members of the distaff side.
History has a way of making for entertaining musical theatre. It is a historic fact that the struggle for independence from the mother stem during revolutionary times resulted in thousands of deaths. Conscripted and volunteer armies waged war against one another in the 18th century and so the right for one half of the nation to achieve equality at the ballot box in the 20th century may seem less consequential. But Taub’s book and incisive lyrics give substance, life and breath to these brave women who we learn did indeed suffer in many ways.
What we understand from this musical is that the improbable campaign of women achieving suffrage was a long, arduous and tortuous campaign beset with impediments imposed by intractable men. Taub stars as Alice Paul, a woman who challenged the existing suffrage movement led by Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella) and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
Catt was the mentee of early women’s suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. We are introduced to her with the very first musical number “Let Mother Vote,” a cute little ditty that undercuts the complexity of the struggle for equality by distilling it into simplistic terms. Colella is a formidable figure on stage as was Catt in real life. She is the unyielding figure who insists that women must stay aloof in their struggle and is appalled when she sees that Paul represents a newer, more scrappy suffragist, someone who will go toe to toe with the men if necessary to achieve victory.
Personifying Paul, Taub expresses her hopes and dreams for suffrage in “Finish the Fight.” She chides herself for being so committed to the struggle and she sings with a cheery and pleasant voice brimming with optimism:
“I want to march in the street.
I want to hold up a sign
With millions of women
With passion like mine.”
If Catt is the standard bearer for the women’s movement marked by her gentility, then Paul is the new woman on the scene who will resort to whatever it takes – pickets, hunger strikes or protests outside the fence of the White House – to call attention to their fight.
Another incendiary figure is Ruza Wenclawska (the charismatic Kim Blanck), a Polish-American known by her Americanized name Rose Winston. Introduced in the song “Great American Bitch,” we come to know her and her defiance against men. It was Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz), who Paul installed as the popular face of the women’s suffrage movement. Miholland was famously seen leading a suffrage parade in a flowing white gown while mounted atop a steed on the day before President Wilson’s inauguration in 1913. Her fight against President Woodrow Wilson (Jaygee Macapugay) comes to a head in “The Campaign,” a brassy and rousing anthem.
The contentious nature between Catt and Paul is seen once again in “The Convention, Parts I and II” and “This Girl,” where Catt remarks:
“I can’t believe I am now viewed as the old guard
And she as the beacon of change.
Me? The Old fogie?
How strange!”
While separated from NAWSA in her battle with Catt’s leadership, Paul enlists the help of socialite Alva Belmont, played memorably by Emily Skinner. It is Belmont’s millions she won in divorce court from her philandering husband that enables Paul to continue her fight for women’s suffrage. Together they found the National Women’s Party, much to the chagrin of the old line.
While the casting by director Lee Silverman is diverse, the story of Black women achieving the right to vote was, as students of history already know and the uninformed might suspect, decidedly more difficult and not fully realized until after the Civil Rights era had ended.
Tony Award winner Nikki M. James plays crusading journalist Ida B. Wells to great effect, while Laila Erica Drew portrays Phyllis Terrell. Dudley Malone, a member of Wilson’s administration, who broke ranks with him over the issue of women’s suffrage is played by Tsilala Brock.
Recently, a protest inside The Music Box Theatre was held by queer identifying women of color who protested that Taub’s portrayal of Paul and Colella’s role as Catt glossed over the historic racism inherent within the women’s movement. As in a famous scene in the musical, these protestors unfurled banners that called out Taub as the creative genius behind the book, music and lyrics for which she won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score in a Musical.
Such protests seem counterproductive since the concept of Suffs is to call attention to the efforts of women to obtain the vote – all women. The primary purpose of a musical is to entertain. Holding Taub accountable for putting on a politically correct spin on history – a standard to which no man has ever been required – is hardly fair. One does not have to be an apologist for racist behavior, but given the political landscape of their time, to expect Paul, Catt and others to be fighting for civil rights for Blacks at a time when their chief aim was in obtaining the vote is unrealistic. The expediency of women’s suffrage made the struggle for an Equal Rights Amendment and the movement for Civil Rights fixtures that would occupy later decades.
It is important to understand these heroes were women, not demigods. Were they to be prescient, they might have fought more valiantly for women of color knowing their actions would be viewed as more heroic a century later. As Suffs reveals, the passage of what became known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment occurred under difficult circumstances and might just as easily have failed.
Skinner’s portrayal of Phoebe Burn in “A Letter from Harry’s Mother” illustrates that point specifically. This plaintive country ballad leads up to the celebratory “I Was Here” and “August 26, 1920” in which Nadia Dandashi as Doris Stevens chronicles the woman’s suffrage movement.
Suffs creatives have collectible cards featuring the historic figures stuffed into each of the Playbills given out at performances. It is another stroke of genius to reinforce the stories that play out on stage and, hopefully, will teach a new generation about the important work done and the suffering done by suffragists in their epic crusade.
Suffs is directed by Leigh Silverman with choreography by Mayte Natalio and music supervision and direction by Andrea Grody. Scenic design is by Riccardo Hernandez and costumes are designed by Paul Tazewell. Lighting is by Lap Chi Chu, while sound design is by Jason Crystal. Wig and hair design by Charles G. LaPointe.
Suffs (2 hours and 30 minutes with one 15-minute intermission) continues its Broadway run at The Music Box The, 239 W. 45th St. in New York City. For tickets, click here.
