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Living Is Harder: Suffs and Grenfell
Suffrage and outrage make for rich stage experiences.
Grace McLean is a great performer — and a fascinating composer in her own right — but her Woodrow Wilson, the smug, smiling baddie of Suffs, isn’t given the show’s sharpest or most original material with “Ladies,” the president’s oily ode to the delicacies of womanhood. A terrible (and true) tragedy strikes Alice’s troupe at the show’s midway point, as they’re all campaigning their hearts out to try to prevent Wilson’s reelection, and Taub — a creator-performer who usually gives herself sprightly, jester-ish roles — lets us see the character’s exhaustion, panic, and despair. It’s harrowing to hear the facts pile up: The way this peaceful public-housing block, largely inhabited by immigrants, was despised and discriminated against (especially after the movie Notting Hill depicted its neighborhood as posh–cute–Julia Roberts London, and real-estate prices skyrocketed); the way the tower’s refurbishment cut so many corners, thanks to David Cameron’s deregulatory agenda, that Grenfell ended up wrapped in building materials that looked prettier but might as well have been gasoline-soaked paper; the way the U.K.’s “Stay Put” fire safety policy led to whole families waiting in their homes while an inferno raged around them and, on their cell phones with loved ones below, they lost the window to escape.
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