“Suffs” at the Music Box Theatre (Photo: Joan Marcus)
When Suffs premiered at the Public Theater, a friend who works in theatrical publicity succinctly summed up the buzz around the show. “Everyone keeps saying that it needs to move to Broadway,” she told me at the time. “No one can really explain why.”
Two years later, the musical about the hard-fought campaign for womens’ voting rights made the trip uptown, where it opened recently at the Music Box Theatre. Clearly, a lot of people believe it deserves to be on Broadway. (The producing team includes Hillary Rodham Clinton and Malala Yousafzai, among others.) But the why of the show, at least to me, remains a largely unanswered question.
There is much to admire in Suffs, which features a tuneful score by Shaina Taub and is directed with economical precision by Leigh Silverman. The subject matter covers an important chapter of American history that too often gets the short shrift, and the character list includes a diverse array of women whose lives and achievements should be better known. Yet as a total piece of work, it suffers from a problem that its leading lady identifies in the first minutes of the show.
When the firebrand activist Alice Paul (played by Taub) meets the veteran suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella), she poses an existential question to the older woman: should the movement and its proponents be patient and agreeable, as Catt has advised, or should they be fiery and insistent? Is the road to the future paved with requests or demands? Too often, the musical takes the former tack, presenting a pleasant historical diversion while eliding the painful struggle to cement equality for all sexes.
The material and production both carry the whiff of diorama theater. You could imagine school groups visiting the National Constitution Center or the Smithsonian and, in the corner of the museum, encountering a slew of musical theater BFAs intoning the lyrics of the rallying cry number “The March”: “We demand to be heard! We demand to be seen! We demand equality and nothing in between!” But large ensemble moments like this—and there are plenty in a score that numbers more than thirty songs—offer only the CliffsNotes version of the suffragist story, and Mayte Natalio’s choreography fails to capture the adrenaline of righteous protest.
Taub’s libretto also glosses some of the suffrage movement’s less savory aspects. Catt espoused racist sentiments throughout her life, and Paul, although more enlightened, privileged the goal of enfranchisement by sex over racial equality. That worldview put her at odds with fellow activists like Ida B. Wells, who knew that she could not separate her sex and her race when advocating for her community’s rights. The script introduces Wells (Nikki M. James) and Mary Church Terrell (Anastaćia McCleskey), but their role in the narrative frequently takes a backseat to Paul’s crusading efforts and her love-hate relationship with Catt. It’s a testament to James’s fine skill that we come away with any sense of Wells’s historical importance, as the role itself is woefully underwritten.
The production’s biggest liability, though, is at its center. For all her talent, Taub lacks the charisma to carry a show, much less convince an audience that legions of women would follow Alice Paul to the gates of hell. Paul’s solo numbers also seem out of character from the rest of the score, sounding more like plaintive contemporary ballads as opposed to the period flare captured in many of the other songs.
The ensemble, however, is stacked with singular talents. Colella zestily captures Catt’s hauteur and her growing fears of irrelevancy. Jaygee Macapugay is moving as Mollie Hay, Catt’s clandestine female partner. Ally Bonino brings a powerhouse singing voice to Lucy Burns, Paul’s doggedly trusted best friend, and Hannah Cruz is captivating as the proto-flapper suffragist Inez Milholland. Grace McLean is slippery fun as the detestable President Wilson, who ignores the suffragists until he can extract some political capital from their cause.
The great Emily Skinner elevates whatever she’s in. Here, with scant stage time, she delivers two memorable and completely different performances. Costumed to the hilt by Paul Tazewell, she swans around in the first act as Alva Belmont, a wealthy widow who takes a shine to Paul’s cause. In the second, she returns as Phoebe Burns, the mother of a Tennessee state senator who implores her son to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. Her tender ballad “A Letter From Harry’s Mother” becomes the beating heart of the show, delivered with simple dignity and glowing vocals. Skinner’s entire appearance is a lesson in the “no small parts” theory.
It’s easy to like a lot about Suffs—including the fine Broadway production, with sleek sets by Riccardo Hernández and vivid lighting by Lap Chi Chu. In the end, though, the musical would be better if it didn’t strive to be so likable. In this respect, Taub could heed Alice Paul’s advice.