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twi-ny talk: RICHARD AYODEJI IKHIDE

Artist Richard Ayodeji Ikhide stands next to Mother’s Embrace at Candice Madey gallery (photo by Kunning Huang)

RICHARD AYODEJI IKHIDE: TIES THAT BIND WITH TIME
Candice Madey
1 Freeman Alley off Bowery
Tuesday – Saturday through June 15, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.candicemadey.com
www.instagram.com/pandagwad

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide is having quite a week. He and his partner, Gina, had a baby on April 29 in London; Gina celebrated her birthday on May 2; Ikhide flew that day to New York City for the May 3 opening of his second solo show at Candice Madey on the Lower East Side, “Ties That Bind with Time”; and he then returned home for his newly expanded family’s first Mother’s Day together.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and based in London, Ikhide studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and the Royal Drawing School. His first exhibition at Candice Madey’s 1 Rivington St. home, June 2022’s “Emiomo,” introduced the title character, a child emissary or messenger, inspired by West African spiritual beliefs and legends, who undergoes a metamorphosis with other figures in a fantastical world. He broadens that vision in the new show at Madey’s Freeman Alley space, in which Ikhide again incorporates his interests in weaving, textile design, comic books, manga, Nigerian mythology, and video games in large-scale watercolor, gouache, and collaged paintings on paper that are screwed into the walls. But this time, there’s a sharper focus on motherhood — and fatherhood — across generations. Each of the five works tells its own story, bursting with swirling colors that depict symbolic animals, ritualistic objects, and red and blue circles.

In Mother’s Embrace, a woman clutches her child, their eyes closed, their bond offering them protection from whatever they may face. In Familial Procession, a man and a woman march with several children, surrounded by floating faces; one of the kids emits a dialogue bubble with an abstract shape in it instead of recognizable words. And in Patriarch’s Principles, a family prepares for a ceremony at a table filled with artifacts.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I bumped into Ikhide at Madey’s Rivington gallery, where he generously agreed to sit down for an impromptu interview. “Ties That Bind with Time” is up through June 15, the day before Ikhide will experience his first Father’s Day as a new dad.

twi-ny: There’s a lot of imagery with children and a mother and father in these paintings. How did that evolve? You started this series before your partner was pregnant.

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide: I think obviously it’s that thing of bringing a new life into the world. It’s kind of like you have all these ideas and associations in terms of what you might think a family might be, or what you might want for your family. And I was saying to people that I felt like this body of work was almost a bit like a visual manifesto, for myself in terms of what I might want for my family unit and how I might want things to be. And one thing I was meditating a lot on was the role of the patriarch; even the word “patriarch” itself can be this oppressive figure in the family dynamic. It was something I really wanted to push against. It’s like a narrative around the idea of the patriarch not as this oppressive figure but also a nurturer, somebody who’s also propagating the life and the vitality of the family.

twi-ny: Fathers get short shrift sometimes.

rai: Exactly. I mean, I’m going to be a Black father; there are so many narratives around Black men and their children, their family units. I don’t want to be that kind of father. I really wanted to counteract or push against some of these narratives.

twi-ny: Why is that narrative still with us? I went out with a bunch of white friends recently and we got into political discussions, and those narratives came up, with some of them arguing that that’s what’s wrong with Black society.

rai: It’s funny because Oprah did a recent study that talked about participation amongst fathers, and African American fathers were quite high. [ed. note: OWN Spotlight: Oprah and 100 Black Fathers aired in June 2021.] A lot of African American fathers are quite active in their kids’ lives, but like you said, that’s a narrative that’s still propagated today. I’m from London, but that’s something that, across the waters, still affects how people view things. It’s been interesting for me. I’ve been to every single midwife visit. I was there in the delivery room. I was there for the baby’s first change. So that’s the role I would like to play in my child’s life. This body of work was a deep meditation on what kind of dad would I like to be, and what kind of family unit would I like to have. It was really interesting to bring it all together, even the whole nine months of seeing my partner’s body change and how she’s adapting. Okay, now we’ve had the baby, she’s breastfeeding, all these things. We’re doing this together. I love her to bits. It’s been both of us, like Bonnie and Clyde. Also, I’ve got a family to feed, so on a financial level I’m thinking, Hey, look. My wife’s been on maternity leave for a while so I’m literally paying for every single bill.

twi-ny: What does she do?

rai: She’s in marketing and research and strategy, so she works with brands and agencies like Sony and Converse. She’s taking time off work, so I can’t expect to be like, You need to chip in your share. That’s all on me now. We’re also talking about all the baby responsibilities, right? And the duty you have as a father, in terms of how you need to make sure your family unit is okay. So yeah, there’s a piece with the patriarch’s principles that’s right in the middle where, you know, you have this patriarchal figure almost giving assurance and direction and almost kind of like life lessons in the sense of okay, this is how you might want to go about doing certain things. I was talking to Jake [Borndal], the director of the gallery, about one thing I got into recently, and that’s all these stats about the involvement of fathers and how the odds for children in terms of their education, career, finances, economic literacy shoot up if the father’s involved. Society needs to also incentivize men to want to play an active role. But if you have this narrative of Oh, men are just going to traumatize their families, then it’s not necessarily incentivizing us.

twi-ny: They’re going to go out for cigarettes and not come back.

rai: Exactly. I’m at a point where, I don’t know, maybe it’s a bit idealist or utopian of me, but I’m like, Hey, maybe that’s the kind of work I would like to make, put that narrative out into society.

twi-ny: And that comes across in your show without preaching at the viewer.

rai: Yeah, exactly.

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide’s “Ties That Bind with Time” is on view at Candice Madey through June 15 (photo by Kunning Huang)

twi-ny: So you’re in London, and your wife gives birth four days ago.

rai: Yeah.

twi-ny: You are there at the birth.

rai: Yeah.

twi-ny: And then you’re on a plane, and you come here to give birth to this show. And tomorrow you’re going right back home.

rai: Yeah.

twi-ny: So what have these five or six days been like for you?

rai: Intense. I’m running on empty. I mean, a couple hours ago I was changing diapers. The night before I had to fly, the baby was waking up like every hour, and I’m like, Oh my god, she needs to eat again. I don’t think I’ve cried so much as in the past four days. Yesterday, towards the end of the opening, I was getting quite emotional because we were in a hospital for about four days, just preparing for it, because our baby was late, so the doctors were like, Okay, we might need to do this, we might need to do that, we might need to do this, and I’m just there like, No, I need to make sure my partner’s okay, she doesn’t want a C-section, no, we’re not doing that. So I was in practical, logical mode. And then Monday, when we came back home, I think that’s when all the emotions started to hit me. Like, Oh my god, we have a child.

And the funny thing is, my partner’s birthday was on Thursday, the night I flew out. So her and my daughter, they’re both Tauruses now — their birthdays are three days apart — I feel really appreciative and grateful to be able to have this experience in my life: a partner’s birthday, a child being born, a show opening.

twi-ny: And now Mother’s Day.

rai: Yeah, so it’s just been absolutely mind blowing, incredible for me. All I can say is I’m grateful, you know?

twi-ny: You look deliriously happy. It’s like there’s this aura around you.

rai: It’s just been incredible to work with the gallery, with Candice and the team, with Jake. They’ve both just been absolutely amazing and incredible, they’ve treated me well, so it’s been such a lovely experience. I know I’m here for only a short time, but it’s been absolutely stellar.

twi-ny: I’m glad I just walked into this, glad you were here.

rai: It’s a synchronous moment.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MOTHERS DAY ON BROADWAY: MARY JANE / MOTHER PLAY

Jessica Lange is mesmerizing as a troubled matriarch in Mother Play (photo by Joan Marcus 2024)

MOTHER PLAY
Helen Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $108-$270
2st.com/shows

Mothers and motherhood have always taken center stage on Broadway, from Rose in Gypsy, Fantine in Les Misérables, and Heidi in Dear Evan Hansen to Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night, Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, and Canteen Anna in Mother Courage and Her Children. This Mother’s Day is an ideal time to pay tribute to two extraordinary semiautobiographical plays now on Broadway, each focused on a unique mom.

At the Helen Hayes through June 16, Tony, Oscar, and Emmy winner Jessica Lange is starring as Phyllis Herman in Paula Vogel’s Mother Play — A Play in Five Evictions. As the audience enters the theater, a soundtrack is playing mother-related pop songs, from the Beatles’ “Your Mother Should Know” to the Mothers of Invention’s “Mother People,” getting everyone in the mood.

The story takes place from 1962 to the present as Phyllis and her two children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), keep moving apartments, going up a floor each time, trying to improve their lot in life. Phyllis is a supreme diva, laying out on a fancy chair and having her kids light her cigarettes and serve her martinis. Her husband left years before and is out of the picture; Phyllis works in a typing pool but imagines herself enrobed in haute couture like Audrey Hepburn.

The memory play is narrated by Martha, who tells the audience at the beginning, “By age eleven, I had already moved seven times. My father had a habit of not paying rent. My mother, brother, and I could pack up our house in a day. A very useful skill. To know what household goods are in every box so one can also unpack in a day. Family in, family out. When I packed up my brother Carl’s apartment after he died, everything he loved fit into one medium size U-Haul box. There is a season for packing. And a season for unpacking.”

There’s a lot of packing and unpacking in the play, literally and figuratively. Whenever the family moves, they rearrange David Zinn’s set, using the same furniture, although different lighting fixtures come down from above. Phyllis insists on listening to old songs on the radio — her favorite is “Moon River,” which Hepburn sang in Breakfast at Tiffany’s — while her children attempt to listen to more modern music but are unable to get their mother out of the past.

Early on, Carl asks, “It’s over, isn’t it?” Martha replies, “What?” Carl answers, “Childhood.”

Carl and Martha have to grow up fast, catering to their mother’s needs, as opposed to her taking care of theirs. She does have a magic purse from which she can suddenly pull out a bag of McDonald’s, but she lacks almost any kind of mothering instinct. It gets worse when Carl tells her he is gay, as she angrily banishes him from their home. And she has little hope for Martha, who she calls “unremarkable,” believing the best she can do is “find an unremarkable man who doesn’t have enough imagination to cheat and drink and whore himself around town like her father does. After a year of learning how to cook, Martha will get a bun in the oven, and give me a grandchild. Because, honey, you are never a true woman until you have children.”

Phyllis might not win any Mother of the Year contests, as she admits herself, but she is not a monster. She works hard to keep a roof over their head, even if there are occasional roach problems, but she doesn’t help matters when she says she never wanted to have children, coldly explaining to Martha, “It’s a life sentence.”

The closing scenes are emotionally gut-wrenching, avoiding genre clichés as some threads are resolved and others remain packed away in boxes, perhaps never to be opened again.

Phyllis (Jessica Lange) seeks solace from her son (Jim Parsons) and daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger) in new Paula Vogel play (photo by Joan Marcus 2024)

Pulitzer Prize winner and three-time Tony nominee Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, Indecent) based Mother Play in part on her life. Vogel, who has been married to author and professor Anne Fausto-Sterling since 2004 and does not have any children, had a brother named Carl who died of AIDS; her other brother is Mark. Their parents divorced when she was eleven, the same age as Martha in 1962, and Vogel’s mother was a secretary for the United States Postal Service, a job that Phyllis gets in the play.

But Vogel is such a potent writer that Mother Play feels intimate and personal but never overly confessional or didactic. Except for one out-of-place scene, the narrative flows with a natural sensibility that is transfixing, directed by Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants Big Love) with a powerful fluency.

Keenan-Bolger (A Parallelogram, The Glass Menagerie) and Parsons (A Man of No Importance The Boys in the Band) are exceptional as the siblings, who are caught up in a seemingly unwinnable existence but refuse to give up. As psychologically tortured as they are by their mother, they still know when to do the right thing for the family. Keenan-Bolger, Parsons, Vogel, and Lange all received well-deserved Tony nominations.

Lange is magnificent as Phyllis; she gives a grand dame performance that you can’t take your eyes off of. At seventy-five, Lange, who has three children, continues to hone her craft with grace and elegance while not being afraid to reach deep inside her. She has previously portrayed Mary Tyrone (Long Day’s Journey into Night) and Amanda Wingfield on Broadway, and Mother Play completes a kind of unofficial trilogy in style.

Rachel McAdams is sensational as the mother of a seriously ill child in Mary Jane (photo by Matthew Murphy)

MARY JANE
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $80-$328
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

The concept of Mother’s Day goes back to before the Civil War, but it began to take shape in 1868 when Ann Reeves Jarvis started Mothers’ Friendship Day as a way to bring together Union and Confederate families, and then in 1870 when abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” presented the Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace. In 1904, Fraternal Order of Eagles Past Grand Worthy President Frank E. Hering called for a day to honor mothers everywhere; he later became known as the Father of Mother’s Day. President Woodrow Wilson, who had fought against women’s right to vote, proclaimed Mother’s Day a national holiday in May 1914.

On this Mother’s Day, Phyllis Herman may understand that she is not going to be named Mother of the Year, but Mary Jane has a much better shot at it.

In Amy Herzog’s exquisitely rendered Mary Jane, continuing at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 16, Rachel McAdams makes a sensational stage debut as the title character, a single mother raising a seriously ill child who requires round-the-clock care. Mary Jane is a kind of saint; she navigates through her complicated circumstances with a smile even as she sacrifices her career and personal life to devote nearly every minute to Alex, who is essentially being kept alive by machines.

Mary Jane does not complain about her husband’s leaving shortly after Alex’s premature birth. She refuses to report one of Alex’s nurses for falling asleep on the job and endangering him. She gives important advice to a woman (Susan Pourfar) who has just had a child like Alex. And she finds the time to listen to other people’s problems and concerns, not concentrating solely on her situation.

Mary Jane lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, where she sleeps on a foldout bed in the living room/kitchen. She is friendly with her most dependable nurse, Sherry (April Matthis), as well as with her dedicated super, the tough-talking, straight-shooting Ruthie (Brenda Wehle). She encourages Sherry’s shy, neurodivergent niece, Amelia (Lily Santiago), who would like to meet Alex.

While fixing a clog in the kitchen sink, Ruthie tells Mary Jane, “You seem to be someone who’s carrying a lot of tension in her body. . . . You’re very nice, very pleasant, you’re very pleasant and with what you’re dealing with I wonder if you have an outlet for expression or if you’re absorbing that all in your body. It’s just a thought. It might not be a useful thought. . . . Because that’s how my sister got cancer.” It’s an astute observation that is all too true.

Mary Jane’s job, and health insurance, is in jeopardy when Alex is hospitalized for months after a seizure. At the hospital, Mary Jane speaks with Chaya (Pourfar), a Hasidic woman with seven kids, including one in the same situation as Alex. Chaya has a more practical point of view with more hope for the future; it’s no coincidence that her name means “life” in Hebrew and that her sick daughter’s name, Adina, means “delicate” or “gentle.” In the Bible, Adina is the mother of two of the matriarchs, Rachel and Leah.

At the hospital, Mary Jane speaks with Dr. Toros (Matthis), who strongly advises she get some rest. “I’ve seen a lot of parents come through here. It’s important to take care of yourself. Sleep in your own bed, take a bubble bath,” the doctor says, but Mary Jane insists she’s okay. Dr. Toros calls Mary Jane “mom,” perhaps because she knows Mary Jane will never hear that word from Alex. But the cracks start showing up when Kat (Santiago), the music therapist, has not shown up yet to sing to Alex.

Mary Jane (Rachel McAdams) and Chaya (Susan Pourfar) share their stories while on the pediatric floor of a Manhattan hospital (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Pulitzer finalist and three-time Tony nominee Herzog (A Doll’s House, 4000 Miles) based Mary Jane in part on her life. Herzog and her husband, Tony-winning director Sam Gold — the partners collaborated for the first time on the current Tony-nominated adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at Circle in the Square — had two daughters, but their eldest, Frances, died from nemaline myopathy in 2023 at the age of eleven.

In Mother Play, the set remains the same but the furniture is moved around for each scene. In Mary Jane, Lael Jellinek’s set undergoes a major change when the action shifts to the pediatric ICU of a Manhattan hospital; what happens to Mary Jane’s living room/kitchen is pure genius, adding an extra level of insight to the story.

Herzog and director Anne Kaufman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, The Nether) premiered the play at Yale Repertory Theatre in April 2017, then brought it to 2017 at New York Theatre Workshop that September, with Carrie Coon as Mary Jane, Liza Colón-Zayas as Sherry and Dr. Toros, and Danaya Esperanza as Amelia and Kat. Pourfar (Mary Page Marlowe, Tribes) and Wehle (The Big Knife) do a fine job reprising their roles on Broadway, with Obie winner Matthis (Primary Trust, Toni Stone) excelling as Sherry and Dr. Toros, and Santiago (King Lear, Mac Beth) making a fine Broadway debut as the curious Amelia.

Making her New York City theatrical debut at forty-five, Oscar nominee McAdams (The Notebook, Mean Girls) is magnificent as Mary Jane, commanding the stage and the audience’s attention as if she were a seasoned theater pro. McAdams, who has two children, imbues her character with a positive attitude that belies, deep down, her carefully controlled anxiety. Mary Jane wants to do all the right things as a mother, but, as with Phyllis, finances get in the way, and the definition of “a life sentence” is very different. However, there is a key moment when Mary Jane wonders if what she’s doing is right for Alex himself, something that never occurs to Phyllis.

The play, which earned four Tony nods, for McAdams, Herzog, Kaufman, and sound designer Leah Gelpe, concludes with a fascinating scene that seems to unfold in its own time and space, in which Mary Jane finally opens up. It’s funny, strange, and heart-wrenching, a moving coda to a powerful, emotional experience.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER

The company of An American Soldier rehearses for New York City premiere (photo by HanJie Chow)

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
May 12-19, $54-$183
pacnyc.org

PAC NYC continues its wide-ranging inaugural season with the New York premiere of An American Soldier, an opera that tells the true story of what happened to Asian American army private Danny Chen in 2011 during the war in Afghanistan. The harrowing story of hate and harassment features a libretto by Tony and Grammy winner David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Soft Power), with music by Huang Ruo (M. Butterfly, Book of Mountains and Seas); the two-hour work, which debuted as a one-act in 2014 and was expanded in 2018, is directed by Obie winner Chay Yew (Cambodian Rock Band, Sweatshop Overlord), with choreography by Ann Yee (Sunday in the Park with George, Caroline, or Change).

Tenor Brian Vu stars as the Chinatown-born Pvt. Chen, with mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen as his mother, soprano Hannah Cho as his high school friend Josephine Young, and baritone Alex DeSocio as Sgt. Aaron Marcum, his main tormentor. The cast also includes Christian Simmons, Ben Brady, Joshua Sanders, James C. Harris, Shelén Hughes, and Cierra Byrd in multiple roles. The thirty-five-piece orchestra will be conducted by Carolyn Kuan.

A coproduction with Boston Lyric Opera and American Composers Orchestra, An American Soldier features sets by Daniel Ostling, costumes by Linda Cho, lighting by Jeanette Yew, sound by David Bullard, and projections by Nicholas Hussong. There will be only five performances May 12-19, and tickets are going fast. The May 16 show will be followed by a panel discussion with Hwang, Kuan, and Ruo, moderated by Ken Smith, and the May 18 presentation will be followed by a talk with Chen family spokesperson Banny Chen, civil rights lawyer Elizabeth OuYang, Hwang, and Ruo, moderated by CeFaan Kim.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SHIMMER AND HERRINGBONE

Fashion takes center stage at Talking Band’s Shimmer and Herringbone (photo by Maria Baranova)

SHIMMER AND HERRINGBONE
Mabou Mines@122CC
150 1st Ave. at Ninth St.
Wednesday – Sunday through May 19, $35
talkingband.org

Amid the flurry of Broadway openings — no fewer than nineteen between March 7 and April 25, the cutoff to be eligible for the Tonys — you may have missed the celebratory event of the season, the fiftieth anniversary of Talking Band, the independent downtown company founded by Ellen Maddow, Paul Zimet, and Tina Shepard in 1974. The avant-garde troupe has staged more than sixty productions since 1975’s The Kalevala, and this year it has treated us to three exquisite new shows in a span of three months.

In February, TB presented the moving and intimate The Following Evening at PAC NYC, a collaboration with 600 Highwaymen that explored personal and professional legacy, starring real-life couples Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone of 600 Highwaymen and Maddow and Zimet of TB. In March, Maddow, in her mid-seventies, and Zimet, in his early eighties, teamed up for the brilliant Existentialism at La MaMa, a dazzling meditation on aging.

TB concludes its unofficial trilogy with the hilariously inventive and profound Shimmer and Herringbone, which opened last night at Mabou Mines@122CC for a limited run through May 19.

In his 1905 short story “The Czar’s Soliloquy,” Mark Twain wrote, “As Teufelsdröckh suggested, what would man be — what would any man be — without his clothes? As soon as one stops and thinks over that proposition, one realizes that without his clothes a man would be nothing at all; that the clothes do not merely make the man, the clothes are the man; that without them he is a cipher, a vacancy, a nobody, a nothing.”

The ninety-minute Shimmer and Herringbone takes place in the titular clothing store, where a handful of oddball characters across three generations — old friends, former lovers, not-so-strangers — shop with the help of eclectic dressing room attendant Rhonda (Maddow), who shares tidbits of carefully phrased philosophy as they seek to change their clothes, their style, and, in several cases, their lives, to not be a nobody or a nothing.

When Rhonda asks one customer, “Did you find what you were looking for?,” she’s referring to more than just a new scarf or jacket.

She says to another shopper, “Where are you going, if you don’t mind my asking?,” a question that requires a bigger answer than the shoe department.

Melanie (Tina Shepard), Colin (Jack Wetherall), and Lilly (Lizzie Olesker) wonder about pigeons and life in world premiere play (photo by Maria Baranova)

At the beginning of the play, Lilly (Lizzie Olesker) and her daughter, the twentysomething Bree (Ebony Davis), find the elderly Melanie (Tina Shepard), who speaks in non sequiturs, facedown on the floor. Grace (Louise Smith) is a realtor who isn’t sure how she knows Colin (Jack Wetherall) and runs away when she sees Lilly, an ornithologist who is embarrassed that she doesn’t recognize Gus (James Tigger! Ferguson), who appears to know her very well.

As they slowly discover more about one another, the characters not only dig deep within themselves but try to understand how they are seen by others — and how they have changed over the years.

“I see this face and I wonder — could that be me?” Grace says, later adding, as only a real estate agent can, “My face is falling apart like an old house.”

Reaching out, Colin talks to Grace about the apartment where he’s lived for more than thirty years. “Suddenly, about a month ago, I woke up and everything looked drab, everything was in the wrong place. The rug that I inherited from my mother was tatty and raveled around the edges, the kitchen table was greasy, and my favorite chair looked like a toadstool with its undersides oozing toxins. It’s like I have changed, but my apartment is stubbornly, defiantly sitting in the past, and I can’t stand it,” he says. Grace responds, “That’s been happening to people a lot lately,” implicating the audience itself.

As the characters share stories from their past that often include details about what they were wearing at the time, Bree is having none of it. When Rhonda asks her, “Can I help you?,” the youngest member of the group quickly replies, “I don’t need help.” When her mother is considering whether she should return a shirt, Bree declares, “It’s just a blouse,” a phrase that sticks out like blasphemy.

Through it all, a string trio consisting of Rachel Feldhaus, Marija Kovacevic, and Agustin Uriburu performs in a far corner, sometimes adding soothing background music and sometimes playing to the characters, who sit down and watch them while having conversations.

Gus (James Tigger! Ferguson) and Rhonda (Ellen Maddow) find common ground through dress in Shimmer and Herringbone (photo by Maria Baranova)

Shimmer and Herringbone is another delightful triumph from Talking Band, reminiscent of its 2022 production Lemon Girls or Art for the Artless, which also featured Olesker, Shepard, Smith, Wetherall, and writer and composer Maddow and was directed by Zimet. The new piece is cowritten by Maddow and Zimet and directed by Zimet, in collaboration with costume designer Olivera Gajic, whose outfits nearly steal the show, from black leather and leopard print to fluffy slippers and feathery hats.

The narrative unfolds on Anna Kiraly’s cozy set, which is centered by four lighted dressing-room doors that the shoppers enter and exit and is also used for Kiraly’s projections of social media posts, images of clothing and the moon, abstract shapes, birds on a wire, and a short film. The soft lighting is by Mary Ellen Stebbins, with sweet and touching choreography by Sean Donovan. A kind of angel at a way station, Rhonda is often pushing along a mannequin or a rack of clothes that were rejected. The characters occasionally sit on concrete slabs like park benches at the front, almost touching the audience.

In addition to the classical music played by the string trio, there are pop songs and poetry, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Blue “Gene” Tyranny to the combo of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. Gus, who fashions himself a literary junkie, references Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Woolf, Borges, Hemingway, and Kerouac as he morphs into James Joyce, who once wrote, “Mother is packing my new secondhand clothes. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life!”

The centerpiece of the show is ornithologist Lilly’s spark bird, the New York City pigeon. Also known as the Columba livia and the rock dove, the bird is not only ubiquitous — it’s believed there are about four million in the city, compared with nine million people — but it is hard for the average person to tell them apart. Human beings have the ability to choose clothing that can assist in defining who they are, both outside and inside, but pigeons don’t have that option. It’s even difficult to identify their gender, as Lilly notes, which becomes relevant late in the play.

At one point, Grace explains that part of her job is “staging” a house, evoking the staging of a play: cleaning it out from top to bottom, then painting the walls white and adding cream carpets and innocuous artworks, allowing the buyer to make it their own home. Each character entering Shimmer and Herringbone is like that plain house, ready to redecorate themselves in their own personal style.

When Bree sees Melanie dragging a large garbage bag, she asks her what’s in there. “Nothing,” Melanie answers. “Stuff that’s been clogging up my closets, burdening my soul for half a century.” How many of us would love to go through our closets and get rid of old clothes that feel like a burden?

“So you want to find something that reflects who you are,” Rhonda says to Grace, who is worried about suffering buyer’s remorse, as if a new outfit is as important as a new home.

Isn’t it?

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SYMPHONY OF RATS

The Wooster Group revisits Richard Foreman’s avant-garde Symphony of Rats (photos © Spencer Ostrander)

SYMPHONY OF RATS
The Wooster Group
The Performing Garage
33 Wooster St. between Grand & Broome Sts.
Through May 9, $20 rush tickets, $35 in advance, 7:30
thewoostergroup.org

In 1988, the Wooster Group staged Richard Foreman’s Symphony of Rats, written, directed, and designed by Foreman, the treasured avant-garde playwright and founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. In 2022, the company asked Foreman if it could present a new adaptation. Foreman responded, “You can do whatever you want! I hope it’s completely unrecognizable.”

Mission accomplished.

The 2024 iteration of Symphony of Rats is a hallucinatory journey into outer and inner space that begins with a fever dream in which Ari Fliakos offers, “Symphony of Rats is about the President of the United States as someone no different from the rest of us: a mixed-up, stupid, fallible person bounced back and forth by forces outside his control. The President is receiving messages by means other than the known senses, and he doesn’t know whether to trust them or not, just as we all receive messages . . . from our unconscious, . . . or God, . . . or the media, . . . or our past experience . . . , and often don’t know . . . whether to validate them by paying attention to them and acting upon them, or to dismiss them as . . . irrational impulses we hope will pass.”

It’s a necessary prelude, as everything that follows, under the precise direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and Kate Valk (who appeared in the 1988 original), is beautiful madness.

Ari Fliakos and Jim Fletcher star in Symphony of Rats at the Performing Garage (photo © Spencer Ostrander)

Fliakos plays the President, who sits in a wheelchair commode at a pair of tables at the front of the set. To his left is Guillermo Resto, who makes deep-voiced declarations through a basketball hoop on its side. To his right are Niall Cunningham, Andrew Maillet (who provides additional sound and video), and assistant director and stage manager Michaela Murphy, fiddling on laptops. Jim Fletcher moves around the stage, portraying a doctor, a scientist, a gnarly rat, and other characters.

LeCompte’s set also includes blackboards, clotheslines on which cardboard is pushed and pulled, an old easel, a narrow column with a basketball on top, a changing scenic backdrop, and projections of an adorable circular digital being who climbs up and down a pole and goes for a walk in its stick-figure-like body.

Over the course of eighty wildly unpredictable minutes, the actors break out into new tunes by Suzzy Roche (“The Door Song,” “The Human Feelings Song,” “The Ice Cream Song”), study an impressive fecal log that comes out of the President, debate going to the chaotic Tornadoville, contemplate ingesting a magic lozenge, discuss evolution and children’s books, recite William Blake’s “Tyger Tyger,” and watch clips from Ken Russell’s 1969 cinematic adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love and Steve Beck’s 2002 horror film Ghost Ship. There’s an MST3K aspect to the whole show, which features sound and music by Eric Sluyter, video by Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon, lighting by Jennifer Tipton and Evan Anderson, phantasmic costumes by Antonia Belt, and dramaturgy by Matthew Dipple. Tavish Miller’s technical direction is a marvel as complex audiovisual elements pop up everywhere.

Although you should not be obsessed with figuring out the details of what constitute the plot, there are references to the President’s mental well-being, world hunger, sleeping leaders, and environmental catastrophe, evoking the current sad state of the planet. There’s also a scene in which the President juggles the globe à la Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.

“Trust me, trust me. It’s so much fun to be inarticulate, Mr. President. Trust me. It really is so much fun,” Jim advises. Later, the President admits, “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Everything in Symphony of Rats might not be immediately recognizable, but it is most certainly not inarticulate, providing provocative fun as only the Wooster Group can.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

“OH, MARY!”

President Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (Cole Escola) have a rare pause in “Oh, Mary!” (photo © Emilio Madrid)

“OH, MARY!”
Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Through May 12; moves to Lyceum Theatre June 26 – June 28, $49-$298
www.ohmaryplay.com

Cole Escola’s “Oh, Mary!” is the funniest, most outrageous show I’ve seen this season. I was finally able to catch it after several extensions at the Lucille Lortel — and now it’s on its way to Broadway, opening June 26 at the Lyceum. Nearly a week after seeing it, I’m still laughing about it.

In the eighty-minute farce, Escola plays the desperately unhappy Mary Todd Lincoln. It’s nearing the end of the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) has had enough of the first lady, who has a fondness for booze; he’d rather spend private time with one of his young officers, Simon (Tony Macht). Mary wants to return to her previous career in cabaret, much to Abe’s displeasure, so he tells Mary’s chaperone, Louise (Bianca Leigh), to come up with other activities to keep Mary busy — and away from him. Abe himself suggests that Mary study acting, which he considers a far more respectable profession than cabaret, hiring a teacher (James Scully) who will change the course of the couple’s life.

Escola mines every line for hilarity while director Sam Pinkleton, who is primarily a choreographer, never misses an opportunity for physical comedy gold. Lincoln is not a brave, thoughtful leader but a complaining buffoon. “God, we’re screwed! We might as well surrender and kill ourselves now!” he tells Simon when the outcome of the war is still in doubt. When Simon advises they should meet with General Burnside, Honest Abe admits, “Let’s go. After dealing with my foul and hateful wife all morning, a little war might be a breath of fresh air.” Later, when Abe is looking to blow off more steam, Simon says that would make him very happy too. Abe asks Simon, “Would it? Would it put a big smile on your face to see me release everything I’ve got pent up?” Simon responds, “Of course. I want you to take it easy, sir.” To which Abe adds, “Oh, I’ll take it easy. And you’ll take it hard.”

Escola gleefully gobbles up the scenery as Mary appears in a drunken stupor, jumps on her husband’s desk, and gets oh-so-close to her daring acting teacher. She’s not exactly the most on-the-ball of first ladies. Each time the president mentions the North and the South, Mary asks, “The south of what?” Quoting Shakespeare, she recites to her teacher, “To be or not to be, that is a great question.” Excited to learn about subtext, she attempts to impress her teacher by explaining, “Well, a character might say, ‘Chicken tummy time’ when what they really mean is, ‘I’m hungry,’ only it doesn’t come out quite right because they’re inbred. Is that subtext?”

While some of the subtext is completely made up, some is based on fact or the gossip of the time. It has long been rumored that Lincoln might have had a thing for Union officer and law clerk Elmer E. Ellsworth, which was explored in Roger Q. Mason’s 2022 streaming play, Lavender Men. Mary did have a difficult life, losing three children and suffering from mental illness that Dr. John Sotos diagnosed in his 2016 nonfiction The Mary Lincoln Mind-Body Sourcebook as the effects of pernicious anemia, but she also was well educated, spoke French fluently, and had studied dance, music, and the social graces. Escola never merely makes fun of her but instead celebrates her with nonstop hilarity.

The set by dots is true-blue and unpretentious, from Lincoln’s White House office, complete with a portrait of George Washington looking down on the absurd proceedings, to a wood-paneled saloon. Holly Pierson’s period costumes are right on point, highlighted by Mary’s full-skirted black gown, as are Leah Loukas’s wigs, particularly Mary’s pigtails and Abe’s black hair and full beard. Cha See keeps it all well lit, with fun music by Daniel Kluger, who designed the sound with Drew Levy.

Escola, who scored with the online pandemic comedy special Help! I’m Stuck!, is magnificent as Mary, fully embodying her as they have a blast with her foibles while also honoring what she went through. It’s an unforgettable breakthrough performance by a writer-actor with a bright future. Ricamora (Here Lies Love, The King and I) is simply fabulous as more than just Escola’s, er, straight man, giving Honest Abe some surprise edges. Scully (The Erlkings), Leigh (The Nap, Transamerica), and Macht (The Alcestiad) all excel in their supporting roles.

The title of the show refers to the prayer to the Virgin Mary seeking protection from sin, but it also is a twist on the catchphrases Mary Tyler Moore’s character often said to her husband, “Oh, Rob,” and her boss, “Oh, Mr. Grant,” on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, respectively; Moore changed television as a successful actress, singer, dancer, and producer, so Escola reverses the dynamic, seeing Moore as a kind of role model for Mary Todd Lincoln in a time warp.

The tongue-in-cheek lunacy even extends to the two-sided program card, which is styled like the one for Our American Cousin, the play Abe and Mary were watching at Ford’s Theatre when he was assassinated.

But the play gets serious as well. At one point, Mary asks her teacher if he has ever had a great day. She clarifies, “I mean a truly great day. The kind of day so great it imbues every single sad or boring or terrible day that came before it with deep meaning because from where you stand on this great day, all those days were secretly leading to this one. And you stand there, high on the hilltop of this great day, watching the sun set on your past, and it all looks so beautiful and so perfect and you think, ‘if only I could stay here, where I can see everything so clearly, where all of my hopes feel rewarded and all of my pain finally makes sense.’ But you can’t stay there. You have to come down the hill and walk into tomorrow and it becomes so clear that the sad days and the boring and the terrible days aren’t secretly leading anywhere.”

Any day that includes “Oh, Mary!” is a great day; we might not be able to stay there, but we can keep on laughing as we come down that hill and walk into tomorrow.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

RACE AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION ONSTAGE: JORDANS / SALLY & TOM / SUFFS

Naomi Lorrain and Toby Onwumere both play characters named Jordan in Ife Olujobi’s new play at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

JORDANS
LuEsther Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 19, $65-$170
publictheater.org

“A reckoning is coming and the likes of you will be crushed by the likes of me!” the enslaved James tells his owner, Thomas Jefferson, in Sally & Tom, one of three current shows with ties to the Public Theater that deal with race and gender discrimination — and a coming reckoning.

At the Public’s LuEsther Hall, Ife Olujobi’s Jordans is set at a modern-day photo studio called Atlas, where some heavy lifting has to be done. The small company is run by the white, domineering Hailey (Kate Walsh), whose staff consists of the white Emma (Brontë England-Nelson), Fletcher (Brian Muller), Tyler (Matthew Russell), Ryan (Ryan Spahn), and Maggie (Meg Steedle) as well as a Black woman named Jordan (Naomi Lorrain), who they all treat, well, like an enslaved woman. While the others bandy about ridiculous ideas regarding Atlas’s future, Jordan has coffee purposefully spilled on her, is told to clean up vomit and human waste, gets garbage thrown at her, and is essentially ignored when she’s not being harassed.

When a photographer (Spahn) is snapping pictures during a photo shoot, he calls out to the model (England-Nelson), “Tell me, who is this woman? What does she want?” It’s a question no one asks Jordan.

Concerned that the company is becoming “vibeless” because their personnel lacks diversity, Hailey hires a Black man also named Jordan (Toby Onwumere) as their first director of culture. When 1.Jordan, as he’s referred to in the script, arrives for his first day, he asks Jordan, “What’s a brotha need to know?” And she tells him: “Well . . . the way I see it is, I work in an office owned by an evil succubus, staffed by little L-train demons, and I spend all day trying not to fall into their death traps. Sometimes it feels kinda like a video game: me running around, dodging flying objects, trying to save my lives for future battles. But then I remember this is my actual life, and I only have one. So.”

Hailey enters and runs her hands over 1.Jordan’s body as if she were evaluating a slave she has just purchased. Maggie demands to know where he is from — and she does not mean where he was born and raised, which happens to be in America. Fletcher, Emma, Tyler, and Ryan bombard him with questions about why his father was not around and was such a deadbeat. The stereotypes keep coming, but 1.Jordan stands firm, even as Hailey asserts to him when they are alone, “I am the owner of this studio.” He has been hired to be the (Black)face of the company and to do whatever he is told. Did I mention that 1.Jordan’s last name is Savage?

Outside the office, the two Jordans disagree on how to “play the game.” Jordan advises 1.Jordan to keep his head down, follow the rules, and not to show off his accomplishments. “You have to let them think that they own you,” she says. But 1.Jordan is determined to be a success on his terms, not theirs, arguing, “I want the freedom to do what I want without having to beg.”

Soon the Jordans become interchangeable, their roles and responsibilities merging and veering off in strange ways, each seeing the white world they inhabit from a new viewpoint. “Who are you?” Jordan asks. 1.Jordan replies, “Who am I?!” Meanwhile, the racist clichés ramp up even more.

Ife Olujobi’s Jordans is set at a modern-day branding studio (photo by Joan Marcus)

In her 2021 pandemic book No Play, in which Olujobi interviewed hundreds of theater people about the state of the industry as impacted by current events — I was among the participants — she asks in the chapter “the end of all things as we understand them”: “In the context of the racial and social justice movements reinvigorated by last year’s uprisings in response to the police killings of Black people, and in the simplest and most literal terms possible, what does ‘doing the work’ mean to you?”

Jordans — the title instantly makes one think of Michael Jordan’s heavily marketed and branded sneakers — is about doing the work, no matter your race or gender. Olujobi, in her first off-Broadway play, and director Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, On Sugarland) don’t back away from harsh language and brutal situations to make their points about where we have to go as a nation, when to take action, and when to sit back and listen. At a talkback after Donja R. Love’s Soft in 2022, White, who directed the show, told the audience that white people were not allowed to take part in the discussion. It was a sobering experience that has remained with me.

Lorrain (Daphne, La Race) and Onwumere (Macbeth, The Liar) are superb as the two Jordans, who get under each other’s skin both literally and figuratively. In an intimate and potent sex scene, only Lorrain’s vulva is exposed, not for titillation, but to declare that power and success do not require a penis. Walsh (If I Forget, Dusk Rings a Bell) excels as Hailey, who represents white leaders of all kinds.

The narrative has a series of confusing moments, and it’s too long at 140 minutes (with intermission); the scene with influencer Kyle Price (Russell) feels particularly extraneous, draining the story of its thrust. But the finale makes a powerful statement that won’t be easy to forget.

Sally Hemings (Sheria Irving) and Thomas Jefferson (Gabriel Ebert) pause at a dance in Suzan-Lori Parks’s new play at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

SALLY & TOM
Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 2, $65-$170
publictheater.org

Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks pulls no punches in her sharp and clever Sally & Tom, continuing at the Public’s Martinson Hall through June 2. It’s a meta-tale about different kinds of enslavement, from the start of America to the present day.

An independent, diverse theater troupe called Good Company is rehearsing its latest socially conscious play, The Pursuit of Happiness, the follow-up to Patriarchy on Parade and Listen Up, Whitey, Cause It’s All Your Fault. It’s set in Monticello, Virginia, in 1790, at the plantation home of Thomas Jefferson, who is in the midst of a sexual “relationship” with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves; he first started having sex with her when she was fourteen and he was forty-four. The show-within-the-show is written by Luce (Sheria Irving), a Black woman who plays Sally; her partner, the white Mike (Gabriel Ebert), is the director and portrays Tom. Dramaturg and choreographer Ginger (Kate Nowlin) is Patsy, one of Tom’s daughters; stage manager and dance captain Scout (Sun Mee Chomet) is Polly, Tom’s other daughter; publicist and fight director Maggie (Kristolyn Lloyd) is Mary, Sally’s sister; music, sound, and lighting designer Devon (Leland Fowler) is Nathan, Mary’s husband; Kwame (Alano Miller), who is looking to break out into film, is James, Sally’s older brother; and set and costume designer Geoff (Daniel Petzold) plays multiple small roles.

The opening scene between Sally and Tom sets the stage.

Tom: Miss Hemings?
Sally: Mr. Jefferson?
Tom: What do you see?
Sally: I see the future, Mr. Jefferson.
Tom: And it’s a fine future, is it not?
Sally: God willing, Mr. Jefferson.
Tom: Do you think we will make it?
Sally: Meaning you and I?
Tom: Meaning you and I, of course, and, meaning our entire Nation as well. Do you think we’ll make it?
Sally: God willing, Mr. Jefferson. God and Man willing. And Woman too.

While Tom is keeping his relationship with Sally secret, Mike and Luce do not hide theirs, although Luce is suspicious of Mike’s ex. Art imitates life as what happens in the play is mimicked by what is occurring to the company members. When Luce points out, “This is not a love story,” she might be talking about not only Sally and Tom but her and Mike. When unseen producer Teddy demands that a key speech by Kwame, aka K-Dubb, be cut and threatens to pull his funding, the company has some important decisions to make that evoke choices that Sally and Tom are facing. Jefferson admits to owning six hundred enslaved people, including Sally and her family, while Luce declares, “Teddy don’t own me.” And just as the company was depending on the money promised by Teddy, Sally and James are quick to prod Tom of his vow to eventually free them. “We build our castle on a foundation of your promises,” Sally tells Tom.

“Handing me a book while you keep me on a leash,” James says to Tom. “Do you want me to remind myself of how kind you are? Kinder than other Masters, hoping that I will rejoice every day that you keep me enslaved? Let me proclaim my Liberty: You are not on the Throne! I stand with all Enslaved People who rise up and revolt! I say ‘Yes’ to the Revolutions that explode and that will continue to explode all over this country. I condemn the ‘breeding farms’ not more than a day’s ride from here. I acknowledge all the Horrors and the Revolutions that you dare not think on, and that we dare not speak of in your presence. What would we do if we were to wake up out of our ‘tranquility’? The wrongs done upon us would be avenged. And the world order would be upended!”

As Tom decides whether he should go to New York City at the behest of the president and who he will bring with him, Luce and Mike have to reconsider the future of the play, and their partnership.

Sally & Tom is about a small theater company putting on historical drama (photo by Joan Marcus)

Presented in association with the Guthrie Theater, Sally & Tom might not be top-shelf Parks — that illustrious group includes Topdog/Underdog, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), In the Blood and Fucking A, and Porgy and Bess — but it’s yet another splendidly conceived work from one of America’s finest playwrights. Parks and director Steve H. Broadnax III (Sunset Baby, The Hot Wing King) breathe new life into a familiar topic, which has previously been explored in film and opera as well as television, music, and literature.

Irving (Romeo and Juliet, Parks’s White Noise) and Tony winner Ebert (Matilda, Pass Over) are terrific as the real couple from the past and the fictional contemporary characters, their lives becoming practically interchangeable on Riccardo Hernández’s set, which contains Monticello-style pillars, the actors dressed in Rodrigo Muñoz’s period costumes. The score was written by Parks with Dan Moses Schreier; Parks, an accomplished musician, composed and played the songs for her intimate 2022–23 Plays for the Plague Year, and on April 29 she appeared at Joe’s Pub with her band, Sula & the Joyful Noise.

“You will be ashamed that you were proud to father a country where some are free and others are enslaved! Where some have plenty and others only have the dream of plenty!” Kwame proclaims to Tom. “All them pretty words you write, Mr. Jefferson, they’re all lies! You’ll soon be ashamed by the lies that this country was built on, Mr. Jefferson! Ashamed by the lies on which we were founded, and on which we were fed, and on which we grew fat!”

As Jordans and Sally & Tom reveal, those lies are still with us, more than two hundred and thirty years later.

Shaina Taub wrote the book, music, and lyrics and stars in Suffs on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

SUFFS
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through January 5, $69 – $279
suffsmusical.com

The reckoning forges ahead at Suffs, Shaina Taub’s hit musical that began at the Public’s Newman Theater in 2022 and has now transferred to the Music Box on Broadway in a rearranged and improved version.

Most Americans are familiar with such names as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but Taub focuses on the next generation of women who fought for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in the second decade of the twentieth century: Alice Paul (Taub), Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz), Doris Stevens (Nadia Dandashi), Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), and Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck).

The musical focuses on generational conflict and disagreements about strategy that have characterized all sorts of progressive movements in the United States; an older, more sedate crowd wants to work within the system, while young radicals want to bust it open with outright aggression.

In Suffs, the youngsters decide to take on the powerful National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella) and Mollie Hay (Jaygee Macapugay), a group that does not want to ruffle any feathers. While Carrie sings, “Let mother vote / We raised you after all / Won’t you thank the lady you have loved since you were small? / We reared you, cheered you, helped you when you fell / With your blessing, we could help America as well,” Alice declares, “I don’t want to have to compromise / I don’t want to have to beg for crumbs / from a country that doesn’t care what I say / I don’t want to follow in old footsteps / I don’t want to be a meek little pawn in the games they play / I want to march in the street / I want to hold up a sign / with millions of women with passion like mine / I want to shout it out loud / in the wide open light.”

While Carrie is content to set up pleasant meetings with President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean) that are either nonproductive or canceled, Alice has no patience, demanding that action happen immediately. After seeing Ruza give a rousing speech at a workers rally, Alice asks her to join their movement. “Look, I want no part of your polite little suffragette parlor games,” Ruza says. Alice responds, “Well, that’s perfect, because when we take on a tyrant, we burn him down.”

One of the most troubling aspect of the fight for twentieth-century women’s suffrage is its relationship with Black-led racial justice and civil rights movements. Suffs does not ignore the issue and instead makes it a major plot point. When Black journalist and activist Ida B. Wells’s (Nikki M. James) offers to bring her group to join the march, Alice initially rejects her, fearing that southern white donors will pull their funding, but Ida won’t take no for an answer.

“I’m not only here for the march,” Ida tells Alice and the others. “My club has also come to agitate for laws against lynching; my people cannot vote if they are hanging from trees.” She also proclaims in the showstopper “Wait My Turn”: “You want me to wait my turn? / To simply put my sex before my race / Oh! Why don’t I leave my skin at home and powder up my face? / Guess who always waits her turn? / Who always ends up in the back? / Us lucky ones born both female and black.”

Despite the march’s surprising success, the suffragists still have their work cut out for them if they are going to convince the powers that be that women deserve the right to vote.

Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz) leads the charge for women’s right to vote in Suffs (photo by Joan Marcus)

Taub’s (Twelfth Night, As You Like It) lively score, with wonderful orchestrations by Michael Starobin, and sharp lyrics keep the show moving at a fast pace, matching Alice’s determination to break down political malaise by getting things done ASAP. Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (Merry Me, Grand Horizons) directs with a stately hand that never lets the energy slow down.

Taub fully embodies Alice, a fierce, driven fighter you would want on your side no matter the issue. Tony nominee Colella (Come from Away, Urban Cowboy) is a terrific foil as Carrie; their battles are reminiscent of those between Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly over the ERA in the 1970s — which Alice also was a part of. Tony winner James (The Book of Mormon, A Bright Room Called Day) brings down the house with “Wait My Turn,” and, in their Broadway debuts, Bonino is lovable as Lucy, Blanck (Octet, Alice by Heart) is a force as Ruza, Cruz rides high as Inez, Dandashi is sweet as the nerdy Doris, and Tsilala Brock adds a sly touch as Dudley Malone, President Wilson’s chief of staff.

As in Jordans and Sally & Tom, Taub’s Suffs explores various aspects of race- and gender-based discrimination, and each offers a very different conclusion.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]