THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 18, 2022 71turns the upstart down, but there’s no
spur to the young like the doubt of the
old, and Alice sprints off to assemble a
crack team of her own. First to join up
is Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), a devoted
school friend, who is followed by Inez
Milholland (Phillipa Soo), a beautiful
radical with high-society connections
and a law degree, whom Alice recruits
to legitimize, and glamorize, the march.
(Inez proposes that she lead the march-
ers atop a white steed: the woman knows
from optics.) Rounding out the group
is Ruza Wenclawska (Hannah Cruz), a
Polish immigrant who cut her teeth or-
ganizing fellow factory workers, and an
eager young graduate, Doris Stevens
(Nadia Dandashi, earnest and funny),
who is enlisted as the group’s secretary.
“How will we do it when it’s never been
done?” the women ask themselves. Paul
knows only that she must “find a way
where there isn’t one.”
T
aub is astonishingly skilled at braid-
ing 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 with NAWSA to found the more
radical National Woman’s Party. Taub
cleverly compresses into panoramic song
the years that Paul and her group spend
lobbying Wilson; when it becomes clear
that no amount of vigorous nudging
will get the President to act, Paul esca-
lates the conflict by picketing the White
House, an act of dissent that results in
a brutal stint at the Occoquan Work-
house, in Virginia.
Taub has a passel of people to ac-
count for, too. The fight for suffrage was
nothing if not fractious, and Taub
smartly echoes the rivalry between Catt
and the impatient Paul with a more sis-
terly dispute, between the firebrand jour-
nalist Ida B. Wells (the steely Nikki M.
James) and her friend Mary Church
Terrell (Cassondra James), the first pres-
ident of the National Association of
Colored Women. While Terrell advises
strategic conciliation, Wells bridles at
Paul’s suggestion that she walk with a
Black contingent at the back of the
Washington March to avoid antagoniz-
ing the Southern ladies whose support
Paul considers key. When Paul disagrees
with movement tactics, she goes her
own way. Why shouldn’t Wells?
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 min-
utes, isn’t preachy, exactly, but it is teachy ;
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. Take Wilson (Grace McLean),
who’s caricatured as a prancing buffoon,
an approach that worked for “Hamil-
ton” ’s mad King George but makes lit-
tle sense for a President noted for his in-
tellect. That’s not all that Wilson is known
for these days. His Assistant Secretary
of State Dudley Malone is played by the
Black actress Tsilala Brock; the casting,
intended, perhaps, as a jab at Wilson’s
notorious racism, also strangely hampers
the show’s ability to acknowledge it.
Then, there’s the riddle of Paul, who
springs into the show as a sui-generis
force of nature and never wavers from
her fixed purpose. (When the Nine-
teenth Amendment is signed, Paul calmly
announces that it’s time to write another
one, and promptly drafts the Equal
Rights Amendment.) Taub brings her
to life with a powerful, soul-raising sing-
ing voice and an A student’s air of dogged
determination; her Paul is a woman born
with her nose to life’s grindstone, and
the serious-minded high-school girls
who may be the show’s ideal audience
will recognize themselves in her and
cheer. But, while self-doubt may be the
activist’s enemy, it’s the artist’s friend.
We want some glint of inner conflict,
some foible or slip, to distinguish Paul
from a feminist picture-book paragon.
The show has heart and message to spare.
It could use more salt.
Toward the end of the first act, we
come close to getting it. Inez turns up
in Alice’s office to explain that she needs
a rest. She’s supposed to go on a cross-
country speaking tour to stump for suf-
frage, but she’s exhausted. Isn’t Alice? “I
ask nothing of you I don’t ask of myself
as well,” Paul replies. But there’s a flash
of tenderness there. Were Alice to stop
for a moment and open herself, to con-
fide in her friend, it would only add to
the joy of this musical. But there’s work
to be done, and on she pushes to pre-
pare for the next battle. Featuring George Booth’s
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