“Suffs,” a new show that sold out its run well before opening, features a strong female and non-binary cast, an inspiring story, and songs that stick in the head for days.
Have you heard of the juggernaut musical about the young, scrappy American revolutionary with a surplus of political genius, who’s determined to change the course of history with the help of a gang of committed cronies? No, not “Hamilton”—I’m talking about “Suffs,” an ambitious new show that sets out to do for the suffragist Alice Paul what Lin-Manuel Miranda did for Alexander H.
That is where Taub picks up the story. It’s 1913, and popular sentiment toward the suffragist struggle is not exactly surging. On a stage dominated by the wide steps and looming columns of the Capitol , the cast, equipped with false mustaches, mug about in the guise of incensed men. Tossing around era-appropriate yuk-yuk jokes , these petty gents ridicule what they fear and despise, a strategy that “Suffs,” armed with history’s hindsight advantage, turns right back on them.
Taub is astonishingly skilled at braiding the wild tangle of history into drama, and at capturing the gruelling effort of an organizer’s work: meetings, protests, and meetings to plan more protests. She has a lot of ground to cover. The Nineteenth Amendment wasn’t passed until 1919, by which time Paul had split withto found the more radical National Woman’s Party.
Still, for all its manifold merits, “Suffs” doesn’t quite clear the hurdle between very good and great. The show, which runs long at two hours and forty minutes, isn’t preachy, exactly, but itteachy; Taub’s talent for condensing is a boon when it comes to the knotty political plot, but it can be a weakness when character is at stake.
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