Inez Milholland, glamorous bohemian and radical lawyer, rode atop a white steed to lead the unprecedented 1913 March on Washington for women’s suffrage down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
Doris Stevens, another leading suffragist, met an aide to President Wilson, Dudley Malone, and so convinced him of her cause that he quit the Wilson Administration in protest of the president’s lack of support for women’s rights – and wound up marrying Doris Stevens.
Phoebe Burn sent her son Harry a letter arguing why he should support women’s suffrage. And that’s why the 24-year-old Tennessee state legislator cast the deciding vote in the thirty-sixth and final state to ratify the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote, making it the law of the land.
All of these stories are true. And each is also a musical number in “Suffs,” a show about the final seven-year push to win American women the right to vote. They were among the reasons I found Shaina Taub’s musical inspiring, instructive and entertaining when I saw it two years ago Off Broadway.
“Suffs” is now opening on Broadway, with those three musical numbers intact – the clever “If We Were Married,” a duet between Nadia Dandashi and Tsilala Brock which starts out as Doris Stevens’ list of ways that the institution of marriage disadvantages women, and eventually winds up a declaration of love; the touching country tune “A Letter from Harry’s Mother,” now sung by a new cast member, Tony nominee Emily Skinner; the rousing “The March (We Demand Equality),” a musical rallying cry led by an Inez Milholland now portrayed by Broadway newcomer Hannah Cruz as equal parts Gloria Steinem and Bianca Jagger, with champagne glass in one hand and a cigarette holder in the other.
But much has changed in “Suffs,” almost all for the better: The show is more streamlined, more focused. At the same time, with the transfer to Broadway, my assessment has changed somewhat. “Suffs” on Broadway is likely to be sought out more for its inspiration and enlightenment than its entertainment.
What hasn’t changed is the portrayal of the extraordinary women in the suffrage movement by an ensemble of eighteen first-rate actors, all of them women or nonbinary, most of them holdovers from the Off-Broadway production. Half of them are making their Broadway debuts. This includes Shaina Taub, who is the composer, lyricist, and librettist of the show as well as its central character, Alice Paul, the young upstart prime mover behind that first march, and all the subsequent actions detailed in the musical that led to the 1920 passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Those of us who have seen Taub’s wonderful productions at the Delacorte have long known her as a terrific theater artist; she is more than due for the greater attention that Broadway brings.
Award-winning Broadway veterans Jenn Colella and Nikki M. James, both of whom were also Off Broadway, stand out as two outliers in the suffrage movement – Colella as Carrie Chapman Catt, the stately long-time leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association with little progress to show until Alice came along; James as Ida B. Wells, the steely crusading journalist against injustice who refuses to be consigned because of the color of her skin to the back of the march (a concession to the Southern donors.)
If Leigh Silverman still helms “Suffs,” though, most of the rest of the creative team – including the designers and the choreographer – have been replaced. The show’s running time has been reduced by twenty minutes. Several old songs have been eliminated, most noticeably the two vaudeville-like satirical group numbers, including what was the opening number, in which the entire cast dress up as cartoon men with abusive views.
A third song, “Ladies,” is still sung by Grace McLean as President Woodrow Wilson, but the lyrics (and the song-and-dance) have been toned down so it too is no longer a vaudeville routine. A few clever or clarifying songs have been added, as have some scenes with dialogue.
And among the new producers are two making their Broadway debuts – Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, a girls’ education activist. Their attachment to the show is arguably the most significant change, because it sends a signal: “Suffs” is important.
This matters because Broadway theatergoers generally have a different set of expectations for a show than what “Suffs” provided downtown. Broadway’s Music Box Theater has more than three times the number of seats as the show’s Off Broadway venue at the Public Theater. It was also built by Irving Berlin and has housed musicals by George Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein.
“Suffs” has met the challenge of the bigger venue with a bigger show visually, with a more flexible set, and some beautiful tableaux vivant silhouettes of the strong-willed ladies in the old-fashioned floor-length dresses and feathery wide-brimmed hats of their era. Although Riccardo Hernández’s set design gives the performers plenty of space, the signposts of Washington D.C. power – Corinthian columns, massive dark wood doors – also at times loom over these women in an apt metaphor for their diminutive political status.
Taub’s score, on the other hand, is neither as varied nor as memorable as the best-known Broadway musicals. There is an anthemic quality to many of the songs.
There are certainly exceptions. I mentioned a few. A playful new song begins with Doris reluctantly telling the others that she’s upset because an old man during the march called her a bitch.
“Congratulations,” says Inez Milholland.
“Your first heckle,” Alice says proudly.
“But,” Doris hesitates. “Isn’t bitch a bad thing?
That launches Kim Blanck as Ruza Wenclawska into song:
I’m a Great American Bitch
I refuse to wear corsets and lace
I earn my own wages and burst into rages when men say “know your place”
The other women then sing a chorus of “She’s a Great American Bitch.”
The song is entitled, not surprisingly, “Great American Bitch.” Ironically, and somewhat tellingly, it’s listed as “G.A.B.” in the Playbill, as if out of respect for Broadway sensibilities.
Most of the 34 songs in “Suffs,” however, exist to drive home what it took to persist, accompanying such events as the forming of the National Women’s Party, the silent vigils outside the White House, the hunger strike during their imprisonment after they refuse to suspend their protests once Wilson declares war on Germany; the triumph of ratification; the plans for an Equal Rights Amendment. That’s right, the ERA goes back to the 1920s. The last song is called “Keep Marching.”..
Yes, the world can be changed
We’ve done it before
So keep marching, keep marching
This is where Hilary Clinton comes in. At joint promotional appearances with the former presidential candidate, Taub has explained that she wrote her first song for “Suffs” during the 2016 campaign, and was inspired to persist despite her discouragement at Clinton’s defeat because of Clinton’s speech that young girls should never doubt how valuable and powerful they are. Taub wrote Clinton a letter asking her to become a producer, and Clinton agreed because of Taub’s “commitment, energy and passion.”
That’s a good description of the musical itself. “Suffs” is, in more than one way and above all, a show of solidarity.
Suffs
Music Box Theater
Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes including a 15 minute intermission
Tickets: $69 – $299 (Digital lottery: $49: General rush: $45. Details.)
Book, music and lyrics by Shaina Taub
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Choreography by Mayte Natalio, scenic design by Riccardo Hernández, costume design by Paul Tazewell, lighting design by Lap Chi Chu, sound design by Jason Crystal, orchestrations Michael Starobin, and music supervision and music direction by Andrea Grody.
Cast: Shaina Taub as Alice Paul, Nikki M. Jamesas Ida B. Wells, Jenn Colella as Carrie Chapman Catt, Grace McLean as President Woodrow Wilson, Hannah Cruzas Inez Milholland, Kim Blanck as Ruza Wenclawska, Anastacia McCleskey as Mary Church Terrell, Ally Bonino as Lucy Burns, Tsilala Brock as Dudley Malone, Nadia Dandashi as Doris Stevens, and Emily Skinner as Alva Belmont/Phoebe Burn.
Photographs by Joan Marcus
