Suffs Refuses to Let You Off the Hook

Shaina Taub's musical about the suffragist movement arrives at the Smith Center with its contradictions intact, its anthems sharpened, and its refusal to flatter the audience fully operational.

Shaina Taub's musical about the suffragist movement lands at the Smith Center with its contradictions still intact, its anthems sharpened to a fine point, and its refusal to coddle the audience very much in evidence. This is not a show that renders the women's suffrage movement as a triumphant march toward justice, populated by saintly figures in white dresses. Instead, Suffs presents a genuinely uncomfortable portrait, one that demands admiration for its heroines while also confronting their flaws: failures of imagination, expedient cruelties, and a willingness to sacrifice Black women's freedom for political gain.

The touring production is elevated by a cast that understands its task is not to produce hagiography. The Alice Paul at its center is a force of conviction so intense it's terrifying - she bulldozes through alliances and friendships with a serene certainty that blurs the line between cause and ego. This performance never winks at the audience, never lets you off the hook; you must decide for yourself whether to like her. The Ida B. Wells is just as uncompromising, and her scenes with Alice Paul crackle with tension that feels more like a moral reckoning than dramatic conflict - a reckoning American theatre has been avoiding for decades.

Taub's score remains the show's most divisive element, and also its secret weapon. Her melodies are deliberately unresolved, harmonies thick with dissonance that only clears in rare moments of genuine solidarity. The leaner orchestrations in this touring configuration serve the material well, providing less sonic cushion between the audience and the lyrics' barbed specificity. When the ensemble comes together for the act-two anthem about the 19th Amendment's passage, the arrangement is electrifying - a moment of raw power that makes the rating of this show a solid 6 out of 7.