Suffs Up - Grab You Placards and Head to the Beach(head)

 

Maya Keleher as Alice Paul and Company Credit: Pittsburgh CLO

First off, it’s suffragists not suffragettes. This is a good thing to remember if you see Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera’s production of Suffs and decide to discuss the show and the women’s suffrage movement with friends and family.

Quite fittingly, the 17-member cast is all female, down to Jenny Ashman, who plays a realistic Woodrow Wilson, the conservative president slow to move on women’s voting rights. What’s more Shaina Taub, a female is credited for writing the book, lyrics and music, a feat that earned her the title “first woman to ever independently win Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score in the same season.

Suffs also won the Outer Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Musical.

Getting back to the female element of this highly entertaining and (for me) informative musical, Leigh Silverman, a much-respected director with slews of shows to her credit, is at the directorial helm. Even the musical director, Danilee Hutch, is a member of the so-called “fairer sex,” a now somewhat dated term that originated in the 17^th century.

The play opens in 1913 with patrician poised Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy) the leader of the take it slow National American Woman Suffrage Association faction of the suffragist movement, delivering a speech. (Let Mother Vote). Frustrated by the lack of progress made securing a woman’s right to vote by the NAWSA, the young and energized Alica Paul (Mya Keleher) wants a more radical approach and calls for demonstrations in Washington on the day of President Wilson’s inauguration.

The old guard and the fired up young blood soon come at odds due to differences in strategy, and Paul decides to go it alone and form a new group with similar-minded zealots. (Finish the Fight).  These include the well-heeled socialite Inez Milholland (Monica Tulia Ramirez), college friend, Lucy Burns (Gwynne Wood) and Polish labor organizer Ruza Wenclawska (Joyce Meimei Zheng).

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 The narrative highlights the successes and setbacks of the movement, their postponing of a personal and social life in lieu of one devoted to their goal (Worth It), the insults hurled at them by male adversaries (Great American Bitch), their arrest on trumped up charges, and their forced feeding and inhumane treatment in prison (Show Them Who You Are).

The show’s tunes are probably unfamiliar to many in the audience, but they have a melodic appeal that’s quite pleasant and enjoyable with its rousing, anthem-like melodies, lyrical ballads and witty lyrics that outline the story. There are also many moments of beautiful harmonies, most impressively rendered by Civil Right leaders Ida B. Wells (Danyel Fulton) and Mary Church Terrell (Trisha Jeffrey).

One of the musical’s most emotional moments (besides the show’s rousing finale “Keep Marching,” comes when Tennessee, the final state needed to pass the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution is shown passing the Amendment by a single vote (A letter from Harry’s Mother).
          Rather than end on a closed book treatment of everything said, done and over, Taub chooses o end her opus with the challenge that there’s still more to work on the horizon on the march to a more humane and just world. And she does it in a way that has the audience up, on their feet and cheering exuberantly as if their team just won the game with a walk off home run.

Suffs, the final production of the Pittsburgh CLO’s, current season runs through July 26 at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh. For tickets, phone 412-456-6666 or visit pittsburghclo.org.