Through Sun 2/22
Suffs, the current Broadway Series production at Playhouse Square, might be seen as following in the model of Hamilton (or, to a lesser degree, Six). Why? Suffs uses real people and experiences to illustrate its story—in this case, how women campaigned for the right to vote.
Spoiler: It was a major struggle.
But does it work for a musical? We’ve seen suffragettes (or suffragists as the show’s characters prefer) in musicals before. For example, in Mary Poppins when the wealthy Mrs. Banks describes “Sister Suffragettes.”
Suffs looks at the issue via the individual and group protests as the movement exploded in the United States in the early 20th century.
Although women had been campaigning in a ladylike manner, as the opening song “Give Mother the Right to Vote” illustrates, when Alice Paul (an energetic Maya Keleher) returned to the United States from England, the fight grew in popularity. The opposition became more brutal. The show’s anthems, such as “Finish the Fight” and “Find the Way,” show ramped-up campaign intensity.
[Irrelevant side note caused by show-inspired investigation via wiki: Paul had committed herself to the cause via the Pankhurst campaign—back to the Mary Poppins reference—in Great Britain where she’d already served prison time for demonstrating. As it turned out, the U.S. ratified the 19th Amendment giving women the vote before Britain did (in 1928).]
Back to the show. It’s filled with compelling representations of historical figures, such as President Woodrow Wilson (Jenny Ashman), Ida B. Wells (Danyel Fulton), Mary Church Terrell (Trisha Jeffrey), Inez Milholland (Monica Tulia Ramirez), and Ruza Wenclawska (Joyce Meimel Zheng).
The excellent all-woman cast of almost two dozen showed how sacrifice, persistence and (let’s face it—I’m biased) fairness eventually won out. Although the irony of “fairness” being an issue was nodded to (especially when the Black contingent acknowledged they still had far to go), the sacrifices (jail, hunger strikes, endless pickets at the White House) were real and, we are reminded, should be acknowledged.
But I’ll avoid the rabbit hole offered (right now, as I write) by wiki, YouTube, and so forth by simply encouraging readers to look these people up.
And that’s one of Suffs’ strongest suits: inspiration. It is a worthwhile reminder that if we have a dream we need to persist (and persist and persist).
Suffs, which won multiple awards, has book, music and lyrics by Shaina Taub, direction by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Mayte Natalio, with music supervision by Andrea Grody, scenic design by Christine Peters, original Broadway scenic design by Riccardo Hernández, costume design by Paul Tazewell, lighting design by Lap Chi Chu, hair and wig design by Charles G. Lapointe, makeup design by Joe Dulude II, sound design by Jason Crystal with associate Sun Hee Kil, and orchestrations by Michael Starobin, vocal arrangements by Shaina Taub and Andrea Grody.
Bottom Line: If all history classes were as engaging as Suffs: The Musical, we’d all likely be much better educated.
But is Suffs really a musical? Or an engaging history lesson with an array of snappy expressive songs? Can it be both? The audience opening night seemed to think so. I agree, but when I need a break from today’s current intensity, I confess I’d be more likely to re-watch Mary Poppins.