It can be challenging to deliver something fresh and unique to the memory play genre. However, in writer Bess Wohl‘s new Broadway show, “Liberation,” she manages to do just that.
Directed by Whitney White, “Liberation” is set in the 1970s and in the present. In the years following the Civil Rights Movement, shepherded by Black Americans, women were fighting to find an equal place in society. Now, a half-century later, the American government is clawing back several hard-earned wins. Bridging the time periods, “Liberation” addresses what was and who we’ve become as a society.
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The play opens in the present day. A woman (Susannah Flood) is grieving the loss of her mom, Lizzie (also portrayed by Flood), while trying to reconcile the traditional wife and mother she knew with the young, ambitious journalist who started a women’s consciousness group in 1970. Weaving back and forth between the present and the past, we are introduced to Lizzie and her five friends, who desired so much more than what the world was willing to offer them.
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Designed by David Zinn, “Liberation” is set in a musty and nostalgic basement basketball gym in Ohio. Lizzie is a University of Chicago-educated journalist who finds herself assigned to the obituary and wedding sections at her newspaper job. Feeling stilted, she forms a weekly women’s group that draws in several different women from various walks of life.
Dora (Audrey Corsa) is a doe-eyed blonde, stuck in a dull and loveless relationship. She desperately wants to turn her fledgling job at a spirits brand into a full-on career. Her polar opposite, Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucia), is a fiery Italian desperate to take on the world, but tethered to her marriage because of her immigration status. The group also welcomes Margie (Betsy Aidem), a middle-aged housewife determined to escape her recently retired husband and the endless monotony of her life. Meanwhile, Susie (Adina Verson), an out lesbian, is fighting burnout from the cause but still clinging to her last bit of hope. Finally, there is Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd), a Black woman who was forced to leave New York to come home and care for her ailing mother, but still dreams of writing and making a difference.
As “Liberation” presses forward with tons of humor, anguish, and candor, audiences learn a great deal about these characters —who they became even after the group disbanded — and why certain choices were made. While some dreams are realized, others are stifled or pushed aside altogether. Through Wohl’s sharp writing, the play explores frank themes, including what it truly takes to be a revolutionary and why self-sacrifice is often not something people are willing to engage in. Moreover, it highlights why people decide to veer in one direction or another, especially when it might serve them over others.
Some of the most compelling aspects of “Liberation” happen in the second half. Leaping ahead to 1973, all of the women, including Lizzie, are in very different places. The second act begins with an explosion of vulnerability: Inspired by an article in Ms. Magazine, the ladies barricade themselves in the gym and strip naked. Going around, they each share one aspect of their body they love and one they hate. It’s a bold and daring scene, shepherded by intimacy director Kelsey Rainwater, that’s less about the nudity and more about the sisterhood and bond the women form to hold space for each other, even amid disagreements.
Later in the act, Joanne (Kayla Davion), a Black woman, stumbles into the gym in search of her son’s lost bookbag. Sitting in on the group meeting, she questions them about excluding mothers who can’t meet on a school night at six o’clock. Additionally, she questions Celeste’s presence as a Black woman, reminding her (as we’ve seen most recently in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election), there is no “we.” White women and Black women often vote, live and experience the world very differently. As Lizzie’s daughter grapples with this sequence, Celeste tells her to stick to her own story. It’s a bold reminder of how race and racism profoundly shape who we are and our varied perspectives.
“Liberation” is a brilliant, well-acted, and sobering account of the women’s rights movement, complicity, and the lens through which we view our caretakers — namely, our mothers. Though it does lean toward melodrama, dragging just a bit in the final moments for a shaky ending, the core of the play is resounding, reminding us all that freedom in a patriarchal and white supremacist-led nation is a constant and continual fight.