A musical that captures the sweep of history in all its complexities without sacrifice of character or credibility is no easy feat.
But “Suffs,” which tells the story of the final push to achieve the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in 1920, does just that with a singular vision and a collective collaboration that is smart, inspiring and thoroughly entertaining.
Since its initial bow in 2022, “Suffs,” created by composer-lyricist-book writer-lead actor Shaina Taub, has been inevitably compared to another musical epic created by a multi-hyphenate that began at the same theater at The Public which offered fresh perspectives of the American experience — and then went on to be a theatrical sensation. “Suffs” may not elicit the same musical furor of “Hamilton” but it’s sure to find a following not only of contemporary suffs, but musical fans, too.
After further development from its initial run, Taub’s female-centric creation has now rightfully earned its place. It’s evident in its inventive storytelling, combined with its musical richness and emotional engagement, fueled by the vigor of brilliant outsiders demanding their place not only in history but on Broadway.
Avoiding didacticism, “Suffs” embraces entertainment from the get-go with its playful opening song, “Let Mother Vote,” led by Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella), an old guard suffragist leader who favors a ladylike way of asking for women’s right to vote.
Enter Alice Paul (Taub), a young firebrand appalled that in the 60-plus years since Susan B. Anthony began the movement, women have still not won victory. Anthony has been dead for seven years when “Suffs” begins in 1913, and it’s easy to understand a new generation’s frustrations with the lack of progress.
After attempting to work within Catt’s National American Woman Suffrage Association, Paul soon forms a splinter group, with the more streamlined named National Woman’s Party, and sets out to organize a march in Washington in 1913 on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
There’s a lot of ground to cover over the seven-year homestretch to ratification, and Taub and director Leigh Silverman barrel through it efficiently and effectively with artful modulations of intensity, humor, sadness, spunk and joy. Also adding variety is Taub’s rich musical palette that ranges from Tin Pan Alley to a dynamic “I want” song for Paul (“Finish the Fight”) to recitative (aka rap), and limiting the anthems to special moments.
As Paul, Taub has an offbeat underdog charisma while still commanding the stage by force of will and wits — clearly a character not to be overlooked or underestimated, but always appealing.
As writer, Taub smartly avoids the facile men-against-women tropes and digs deeper into internal challenges within the movement and within the women as individuals. Thanks to the specificity of the writing, music and lyrics and a remarkable ensemble of women and nonbinary actors, the multitude of characters in this densely packed historic narrative are, if not deeply, then at least reasonably well-defined and relatable with their personal doubts, fears and triumphs.
In this whoosh of history (amid Riccardo Hernandez imposing set design of the pillared halls of power), Paul quickly enlists a group of like-minded progressive women. There’s college pal Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino, very funny in the let’s-own-the-word song “Great American Bitch”); young acolyte Doris Stevens (Nadia Dandashi); Polish-born labor organizer Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck); Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz, grand and touching), the savvy socialite who leads the march on Washington on a white horse (talk about smart optics); and the new organization’s wealthy patron, Alva Belmont (Emily Skinner).
But it’s the face-off between Paul and Catt that give the musical its drive, tension and substance. Colella’s Catt is genteel but not obnoxiously smug, making this dedicated leader understandably reluctant to give the reins to a younger generation. In Colella’s terrific rendition of “This Girl,” Catt initially characterizes Paul as a disrupter but then later in a reprise sees her younger self in the committed interloper.
Black journalist Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James) is a powerful presence throughout, reminding in no uncertain terms that the movement is sacrificing its Black sisters for expediency. James’ stunning “Wait My Turn” is a stinging response.
Wells’ friend Mary Church Terrell (Anastacia McCleskey) takes a more accommodating view of the new suffragists and her relationship with Wells echoes the Paul-Catt split, but one with a greater degree of understanding, respect and humor. (Terrell would go on to become the first president of the National Association of Colored Women.)
Instead of gangs of taunting men from an earlier version of the show, Taub now reduces the male naysayers to the singular figure of a snide, slippery and condescending Wilson (Grace McLean in man-drag, doing a dazzling vaudevillian turn in “Ladies.”).
But Taub also presents a male ally to the cause in Dudley Malone (Tsilala Brock, perfectly understated), Wilson’s chief of staff who also courts Stevens in a charming love song with a clever suff counterpoint.
Taub makes one artful move after another, bringing lightness or brightness to the story without diminishing the seriousness of purpose or skewing history, though some of the events fall into the strange-but-true category. (“Look it up,” several characters suggest to the audience.)
The story also doesn’t skip over the darker aspects of the movement: a death, physical attacks, the jailing of Paul’s team, hunger strikes, force feeding, and threats of psychiatric institutionalism.
Even unsung heroes get their musical moments, a touching one by Phoebe Burn (Skinner again, lovely), the mother of a Tennessee state senator whose vote decides the fate of the amendment. There’s another song for Malone musicalizing his resignation letter to the president for not supporting the women’s cause.
It all underscores the power of being on the right side of an evolving history and how things can change by the narrowest of margins, something that surely resonates with one of the show’s producers, Hillary Clinton.
In “Suffs,” the message of this thrilling new musical is resoundingly clear: “Keep marching.”
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