Suffs - Broadway Pro Shot

 

Suffs is an important piece. It's a good piece. It's the kind of piece that all high school students should be required to watch. But, for me, it's a piece that left me feeling more "yes! It's very good that we're talking about these important historical events that far too few people know about" and less "that experience moved me."

Suffs is the "safe" version of what I think was done more emotionally effectively in the 2015 film Suffragette starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep (the musical was not based on this film). If you haven't seen that film, I highly recommend it  - but be warned: it is not for the faint of heart. Suffs gives you facts about the American suffragette movement - we learn about important historical figures, the need for intersectionality, the arguments made for and against the right for women to vote, what women gave up in pursuit of the fight, how black women aided the movement and were left behind by it... etc. Suffragette (which tells the story of suffrage in the UK), makes you FEEL what these women went through, and it doesn't shy away from the more horrific aspects of the movement - such as the arrests, cruel treatment of women, disturbing force feeding, and on and on. Suffs presents women's rights as a hard won but noble intellectual battle. Suffragette brings home the fact that the suppression of women was also born out of out right evil and truly disturbing misogyny. With Suffs we know we must be diligent because this could happen again. With Suffragette we feel how it's happening now. This is a bit of an extreme example, but it makes a point: for me, Suffs is The Hobbit. Suffragette is The Lord of the Rings.

One can't help the inevitable comparisons to Hamilton. Suffs was the first post Hamilton "historical" Broadway musical and, to me, while it is a fine show, it proves that Hamilton was the exception, not the rule. Just as post Jersey Boys everyone wanted to do a jukebox musical, so after Hamilton everyone was pitching their history musicals (there was a rock Joan of Arc that had Hamilton hopes (accentuated by, like Hamilton, also starting at The Public) but was apparently so bad it never made it out of it's initial run.) It doesn't work to just put history on stage and sing about it...there has to be a REASON for this story to sing (as is the case with all musicals.) There's no inherent reason for this particular suffragette musical to sing... 

There's not a lot that actually HAPPENS in this story. That's not an inherently bad thing (there's almost nothing that HAPPENS in Company...) but it FEELS like a frustrating thing here. Basically the women's movement has been chugging along for a while, when a group of young upstarts decide to be a bit more bold and stage a...MARCH! How are they going to get the money? How are they going to include their sisters of color without alienating southern donors? Finally they get a meeting with the President...who blows them off for years. Then one of their number dies while giving a speech (of symptoms from exhaustion, not an assassination...) and the big climax at the end of act 1? "Let's meet at the White House gates at dawn." 

Ok.

The women sing A LOT about how they're "doing something no one's ever done before" to the point where it feels like telling not showing. There is also a bold (and promising) convention that the cast is made of all women - even the male characters are played by men. But there doesn't really seem to be a point to it in practice. Yes, it's always wonderful to see the great Grace McLean do her thing... but what is being added to the story by not having any men onstage? (I'm not advocating for men in the cast, but if you're going to make it part of your advertising that you don't there'd better be a strong, clear message and reason for it.)

Most of the music relies on build ups of the same lyric sung over, and over, and over again - so much so that it quickly feels like a crutch. And then number of songs that use "how long must we wait" (or a near variation) as a hook! I'm shocked someone on the creative team didn't put their foot down. It gets to the point where we're like: "Um...I have a feeling that by the end of the show you'll be done waiting. Only 40 min left." There's a lot of talk about how people are, generally, feeling, but little rumination from individual characters about how they are feeling moment to moment:

"At first we feared we were too few to keep this going

How could such a little army go on standing in the cold?

But day by day more women came from all corners of the country

I could hear a hum of hope each time a new one joined the fold."

It sounds like something you'd read in an American Girl doll book or, worse, a high school textbook. In reality one of the protests outside the Whit House gates came to be known as "The Night Of Terror" when the women who were arrested were brutally beaten and tortured by the guards in jail. You'd have no idea from Suffs. Force feeding is mentioned later in the act, but nothing really packs the punch you know it should. And, hey, singing a power ballad and leaking a letter fixes it all pretty fast.

The closest we get to real life or death stakes is an occasional comment that "oh, some scary men with clubs started forming a crowd around us..." but then in the next sentence all is put right with "but then we remembered our courage and kept on going!" Yes, some of them are arrested, but it's treated pretty lightly compared to the reality. There was incredible, dangerous mob violence against women suffragists. 

Ironically, for me, the most powerful moments in the show were those featuring the male characters... the first when the President's advisor gets a lesson on what marriage actually meant, legally for women, the second when that same character, in song, quits the president's administration because he believes that the men of the country ought to risk something in support of women.

The other strong dynamic is that between the leader of the "old guard" of the women's movement, and the new - putting front and center the debate between "if we're just good little girls they'll eventually see reason and give us what we want" and "stop playing they're game we've got to hit them where it hurts". 

It's the moments that focus on the personal that hit the most powerfully. Skinner's act two solo where she tries to convince her son to be the deciding vote in ratifying the women's vote amendment in Tennessee. The "conservative" women's leader realizing she had to suppress her more rebellious experience. Ironically, that's what made Hamilton work too. But those moments are too few and far between in Suffs.

Shaina Taub wrote the book, music and lyrics and stars as Alice Paul - the young, upstart leader of the "rebellious" side of the movement. Taub is pitch perfect as Paul - in fact I think her performance may be my favorite of her contributions to the piece. She's passionate, sweet, nerdy and that special kind of endearing that only a beautifully sincere soul just left of center can be. Hannah Cruz is fantastic as Inez Milholland - the kooky socialite who becomes the (ultimately tragic) face of the movement and whose fearlessness in many ways provides the engine that keeps the movement running. Nikki M. James is always lovely to see onstage, and here gives us a beautifully complex Ida B. Wells. 

It's always wonderful to see Emily Skinner onstage, as well as Grace McLean. I wish they were put to more use here. They get great features, and then disappear for huge stretches.

The pro shot is well done, filmed and edited. It's worth checking out...but in this case I think the hype is more than the piece lives up to.

Laura Sele

Suffs is currently available for streaming.