There’s nothing wrong with this season’s crop of chronically ailing Broadway musicals, it turns out, that can’t be set right by a little talent. Well, make that a lot of talent, or even a whole lot of talent. Upon the well-worn heels of no less than 11 anemic new musicals comes Shaina Taub to Broadway’s rescue with the provocative, mirthful, entertaining, and irrepressibly rousing Suffs.
Taub’s masterwork—and her first musical to reach Broadway—was initially staged two Aprils back at the Public Theater, in the same space that originally hosted Hamilton, Fun Home, Caroline or Change, and A Chorus Line. Which is, all in all, pretty fine company. The downtown Suffs showed great promise, although in need of the type of developmental rewriting and refining of the sort which is impossible to accomplish when the composer-lyricist-bookwriter cannot sit out front and watch the show because she is onstage playing the leading role. In the interim, Taub has not only refined the piece; she has rethought it.
Among other elemental shifts, Suffs—now at the Music Box—has a knockout new ragtime opening number (“Let Mother Vote”), which is used as something of a recurring theme:
Let mother vote
We’ll nurse the USA
Until corruption, greed and vice
Are sweetly swept away
There is also an exhilarating closing number (“Keep Marching”), which all but gets the audience marching in place as these suffs of a hundred years ago tell their present-day descendants:
We did not end injustice and neither will you
But still we made strides so we know you can too
Thus, Taub and company get the show off to a faster start and end it with a bigger bang, with other significant alterations along the way. At the same time, the author retains her underlying rallying cry:
How will we do it when it’s never been done?
How will we find a way where there isn’t one?
[Read Roma Torre’s ★★★★★ review here.]
“Suffs” is short for suffragists. As one of the characters explains, “suffragettes is what the papers call us to make us seem like kewpie dolls instead of legitimate reformers.” The time is 1913. Eager young firebrand Alice Paul (Taub) approaches the venerated Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, suggesting that perhaps society luncheons and polite lobbying are ineffective methods for getting the women of America the right to vote. Paul assembles a ragtag team to fight the battle: fellow Swarthmore graduate Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), glamorous socialite Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz), immigrant socialist Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck), and eager scribe Doris Stevens (Nadia Dandashi). The last is enlisted as recording secretary of the group; Stevens’ 1920 book “Jailed for Freedom” served as source material for Taub. (All of the major characters are historical figures.)
They are joined by such real-life personages as Chicago journalist Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James), Gilded Age millionaire Alva Belmont (Emily Skinner), and political operative Dudley Malone (Tsilala Brock), who resigns his position with President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean) in protest. (Taub has written Malone and Wilson, along with other minor male characters, to be performed by an all-women cast.) Together, this band of suffs wages the battle that leads to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, allowing women the right to vote. White women, at least. As is the case with so many of our American freedoms, equality does not always mean equality—a topic addressed with candor by Taub and delivered with power by James in “Wait My Turn.”
Director Leigh Silverman (Violet) has retained most of the players from the Public, with the production marked by a distinctive supporting cast: James, a Tony-winner for Book of Mormon, giving a nuanced and powerful performance; McLean, of Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812, repeating her devastatingly wicked portrayal of the 28th president; and Colella, of Come from Away, who uncomfortably comes to realize that the objectionable Alice Paul resembles her younger self. Similarly impressive in less flashy roles are Cruz (of The Connector, who has moved from her downtown chore as the fiery immigrant into the role originated by Philippa Soo), Bonino, and the delectable team of Dandashi and Brock—whose characters sing about “If We Were Married” and in 1921 did indeed get married.
Newcomers to the cast include young Laila Erica Drew, who does extremely well in two roles, and veteran Emily Skinner, who goes back to Side Show in 1997. Skinner plays the flashy role of the millionaire benefactor with her customary comedic flair. Look closely, though, and you’ll notice that it is Skinner who comes on at a critical moment as a drably worn Tennessee mother, tugs at the heartstrings, and in effect changes American history.
The physical production, which was among the less successful aspects downtown, has been redesigned from scratch. Now we have a spare, open scheme featuring Washingtonian columns and frequent silhouettes across the wide horizon. The new team includes scenic designer Riccardo Hernández (who, between Sunday’s Lempicka and Tuesday’s Sally & Tom, has had a busy week), costume designer Paul Tazewell (Hamilton), lighting designer Lap Chi Chu (Camelot), and hair designer Charles G. LaPointe (Hamilton). There is also a replacement choreographer, Mayte Natalio (How to Dance in Ohio). Music director Andrea Grody (The Band’s Visit) has remained on the podium, leading a 12-piece band in new orchestrations by Michael Starobin (Sunday in the Park with George) with the composer and Grody providing the vocal arrangements
There hasn’t been a new musical written singlehandedly by a first-time-on-Broadway composer-lyricist-bookwriter starring in their own musical since—when? As best I can tell, back in 1901 when that flag-waving George M. Cohan did it. This would be an impressive accomplishment even if the work, itself, were ordinary. Taub’s talent, though, is extraordinary: as a performer, yes, but even moreso as a songwriter with a canny theatricality and an uncanny future.
Suffs opened April 18, 2023, at the Music Box Theatre. Tickets and information: suffsmusical.com
