If you were a woman in 1970, by almost every standard, you were regarded as a second class citizen in this country. You could not get a credit card or mortgage without a responsible man to co-sign for you. Abortion was illegal across the land; no matter your education or experience, you had fewer opportunities and were likely to earn less than your male counterparts; and despite all your protests and your dogged determination to gain equal rights, true equality eluded you. That’s the backdrop for Bess Wohl’s beautifully evocative play entitled Liberation. And given recent setbacks for women in the political landscape, this timely work resonates in a deeply personal way.
Wohl came up with a clever framework for the play. Subtitled A Memory Play About Things I Don’t Remember, she begins in the present day with a young woman named Lizzie (Susannah Flood) needing to know why her mother seemed to give up on the feminist cause after organizing a women’s liberation group in 1970.
Through flashbacks, Flood takes on the role of her mother, also named Lizzie, who had yet to marry and have children. At the time in 1970, she was a frustrated journalist stuck on the “weddings and obituaries” beat for her Ohio newspaper. And that’s what prompted her to distribute flyers inviting women to join her for some “consciousness raising” in the basement of a rec center.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Five women from disparate backgrounds respond, and one by one, they enter, united simply by their desire for social change. The play’s first act which runs a little over an hour is basically an extended introduction to the group.
This first half could benefit from some cutting as the plotline feels somewhat stagnant. But thanks to an exceptionally gifted ensemble and Wohl’s insightful eloquence and good humor, the portraits they create are riveting despite the lack of action.
Susan (Adina Verson), the youngest, is an unemployed 20-something lesbian with a militant streak. Margie (the supremely gifted Betsy Aidem, who dazzled us with her Tony-nominated performance in last season’s Prayer for the French Republic) is an overworked, unhappily married mother of two sons with a lazy husband whom she’d like to stab. Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd) is a smart woman of color who survived an impoverished background to become a book editor but is taking a break to care for her elderly mother. Dora (Audrey Corsa) arrives by accident, mistakenly thinking she entered a knitting circle, and the Italian accented Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio) blusters late into the meeting full of energy and reveals that she married for a green card.
Act 2 starts off with quite a bang. When the women enter the stage, they quickly disrobe to perform in total nudity. (It explains why we were forced to deposit our cell phones in a sealed pouch before entering the theater.) I have to hand it to the actors for their courage and to Wohl for crafting the scene in a tasteful and amusingly awkward manner. The group is committed to the notion that the shedding of clothes is a form of female empowerment. That was all part of the cultural revolution back then. But self expression can only last so long in a cold basement, and after about ten minutes, the clothes go back on.
The arrival of a male character introduces a whole new dynamic to the story and it elevates the play’s second half in highly compelling fashion. Bill (Charlie Thurston) meets Lizzie at the rec center and they fall in love. For the courtship scene, Lizzie breaks the memory to ask for someone else to play her mother since she finds it awkward to be romantic with the man who turned out to be her dad. Kayla Davion, stepping in from the wings, is terrific in the role.
Afterwards, when the group finds out about Lizzie’s relationship with Bill, they view it as a betrayal. As one of them says “…if you want to talk about love. And freedom? Well, yeah, it’s almost impossible to have both.”
So, is that what happened to Lizzie’s mother? Did marriage and children force her to abandon all her feminist ideals? Wohl provides a poignant response, penning a tender scene between Lizzie and her mom. Margie becomes the mother telling Lizzie “Don’t get so caught up in the past…that you forget to become yourself.”
Whitney White’s direction sets a warm and intimate tone for the production, though there was some confusion going back and forth in time. The light cues indicating past and present were not always clear enough.
The play ends on a note of futility. The women went on with their lives still pushing for equal rights but the movement never regained its footing. Was it the women’s fault or is it that the world just isn’t ready for gender equality, the play asks. Women have made a lot of strides since those early days, but 55 years later, true liberation still feels like an aspiration that remains out of reach.
Liberation opened February 20, 2025, at the Laura Pels Theatre and runs through March 30. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
