With women's rights under fire, the musical 'Suffs' is right on time

‘Suffs,’ Shaina Taub’s philharmonic astir however women yet secured the close to ballot successful America, won Tony Awards for its publication and score. It mislaid the champion philharmonic contention to “The Outsiders,” but the respect it earned erstwhile it opened past outpouring connected Broadway made it an unequivocal winner.

The amusement is having its Los Angeles premiere astatine the Hollywood Pantages Theatre successful a touring accumulation that is creaseless and smart. Taub’s enactment deserves thing little than an “A.” The formed is excellent, the staging is graceful and the governmental connection could not beryllium much timely.

The amusement mightiness not person the crackling vitality of “Hamilton” oregon the bluesy poignancy of “The Scottsboro Boys.” It’s a bully woody much earnest than either of these history-laden musicals. There’s an acquisition imperative astatine the bosom of “Suffs,” which deals with a taxable that has been marginalized successful schools and successful the corporate consciousness.

The 19th Amendment, which gave women the close to vote, was ratified successful 1920, a small much than a period ago. The past isn’t truthful distant yet I’m definite I wasn’t the lone 1 astatine Wednesday’s opening who was learning astir the forceful tactics that helped Alice Paul and her chap suffragists propulsion their question implicit the decorativeness line.

“Suffs,” a philharmonic for the nationalist square, is arsenic informative arsenic it is uplifting. It is supra each a moving testament to the powerfulness of sisterhood. The conflict for equality continues to look crushing setbacks today, but Taub wants america to retrieve what tin hap erstwhile radical basal agreed for a conscionable cause.

Alice (a winning Maya Keleher) doesn’t look similar a rabble-rouser. A bright, well-educated pistillate with a polite demeanor, she looks similar a aboriginal teacher of the twelvemonth much than a extremist organizer. But she has an activist’s astir indispensable quality: She won’t instrumentality nary for an answer. (Keleher lends alluring warmth to the relation Taub made her Broadway debut in.).

Marya Grandy and the institution of the nationalist circuit of “Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

She’s rebuffed by Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy), the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, whose motto (“Let your all-American parent vote”) is the ground for the show’s opening number, “Let Mother Vote” — a distillation of the old-guard attack that has yet to output women the vote.

Alice wants to signifier a march successful Washington D.C. to unit the president’s reluctant hand, but Carrie prefers a much genteel strategy. “Miss Paul, if my precocious large mentor Susan B. Anthony taught maine anything, it’s that men are lone consenting to see our origin if we contiguous it successful a lady-like fashion.

“State by state, dilatory and steady, until the country’s ready” is, aft all, NAWSA’s cardinal creed. But Alice points retired that if they proceed astatine this glacial gait they’ll beryllium dormant earlier they tin ever formed a vote.

Swinging into action, Alice teams up with her person Lucy Burns (Gwynne Wood), who worries that they haven’t the acquisition to instrumentality connected specified a momentous mission. “We’ve ne'er planned a nationalist enactment before,” she objects astatine the commencement of their duet “Find a Way.” But undaunted Alice has the bold thought of recruiting Inez Milholland (played astatine the opening nighttime show by Amanda K. Lopez), and a mode guardant miraculously materializes.

Inez has conscionable the close glamorous nationalist representation that Alice thinks volition springiness their march the publicity boost it needs. Studying for the barroom exam, Inez is initially reluctant but agrees if she tin pb the march connected horseback.

This representation of Inez connected a steed becomes cardinal some to the question and to manager Leigh Silverman’s production, which finds elemental yet striking ways of bringing revolutionary alteration to life. A chorus enactment of activists wearing suffragist achromatic (kudos to the luminous tact of costume decorator Paul Tazewell) eloquently communicates what solidarity tin propulsion off.

Brandi Porter, left, and Jenny Ashman arsenic President Woodrow Wilson successful ‘Suffs.”

(Joan Marcus)

An all-female formed dramatizes this inspiring American story. Taub takes immoderate fictional licence with the characters but mostly sticks to the record.

Notable allies successful Alice’s enactment see Ruza Wenclawska (Joyce Meimei Zheng) a Polish-born commercialized national organizer with a no-nonsense grassroots style, and Doris Stevens (Livvy Marcus), a shy yet undeterred pupil from Nebraska who becomes the group’s concealed limb secretary.

Ida B. Wells (Danyel Fulton), an aboriginal person successful the civilian rights movement, takes portion successful the march but resists being utilized arsenic a prop successful what she calls NAWSA’s “white women convention.” Mary Church Terrell (Trisha Jeffrey), a chap Black activist, by opposition believes that it’s lone done information that practice tin determination forward.

President Woodrow Wilson (Jenny Ashman), who makes promises to the suffragists helium is hesitant to keep, is simply a important people of Alice’s unit campaign. Her group’s entree to him is aided by Dudley Malone (Brandi Porter), Wilson’s right-hand man, who becomes smitten with Doris.

The people marches up successful a mode that makes advancement seem, if not inevitable, relentless successful its pursuit of justice. The songs harvester the patriotic exuberance of John Philip Sousa and the American breadth of Broadway composer Stephen Flaherty (“Ragtime”). The enactment of popular accessibility successful Taub’s euphony and the satiric wit of her lyrics adhd to the buoyancy. You won’t permission humming a tune, but the wide effect (while ephemeral) is pleasing successful the theater.

With the past already determined, the publication can’t assistance resembling astatine times a civics exhibition. Dramatic hostility is hard to travel by. Alice and her cohorts endure sedate disappointments and indignities (including a harrowing stint successful prison), but the eventual result of their struggles is known.

“Suffs” sometimes feels similar a past acquisition neatly compartmentalized into Important Episodes. There’s a whiff of PBS to the mode the philharmonic unfolds. This is taste programming that’s bully for you.

But the teamwork of the performers honors the messy yet undeniably effectual practice of Alice and her state fighters — women who changed the satellite by not staying soundless successful their prescribed place.