Consciousness and camaraderie are raised in a group that includes (from left) Irene Sofia Lucio, Audrey Corsa, Susannah Flood, Betsy Aidem and Kristolyn Lloyd.
One month after Suffs, a celebration of first-wave feminism, closed on Broadway, playwright Bess Wohl shines a spotlight on the second wave in Liberation. Wohl offers vividly sketched characters, a well-honed mix of comedy and drama, and a complex yet heartening portrayal of sisterhood, but falters a bit incorporating her family history into the plotline and attempting to reconcile the 1970s women movement’s racial blind spots.
Like Wohl’s breakout hit Small Mouth Sounds, which is set at a silent retreat, Liberation centers on six people—strangers at first—gathered in one particular place. Physically, that place is the basement gym of a community center in Ohio. But the true particular is why they’ve come there: consciousness raising (CR) for women’s liberation.
Aidem (right, with Flood) follows up her roles in The Ask and Prayer for the French Republic with another part where she’s interacting with younger idealists. Irene Sofia Lucio is in the background.
The group was organized by Lizzie (Susannah Flood), a twentysomething journalist who, despite her degree in international relations, has been stuck writing obituaries and wedding announcements for the local paper. She’s joined by Margie (Betsy Aidem), a housewife for 30-plus years who can’t stand being home with her husband all the time now that he’s retired; Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd), a Harvard-educated writer who had to move back from New York to care for her ailing mother; Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio), an Italian firebrand in a green card marriage; pretty and conservative-looking Dora (Audrey Corsa), trying to work her way up at a beverage company; and Susan (Adina Verson), a lesbian disowned by her family and now living in her car.
Liberation follows the group over three years, as the women fight the patriarchy at home and work, hit the streets for demonstrations and try out the latest trends in feminist empowerment, including stripping off their clothes for a meeting in the nude.
Adina Verson plays Susan in Bess Wohl’s Liberation.
There is an additional—and autobiographical—story line, as Liberation is narrated in the present by Flood as the playwright, who is Lizzie’s daughter. She yearns to know more about the CR group her late mother belonged to when she was single, and to understand how this “radical” ended up as a “dutiful mom who sewed the costumes for every school play and cooked every family dinner and did all the dishes.”
Throughout the play, Flood makes asides to the audience as the playwright/daughter, and other actresses step out of character occasionally to comment on what happens. The main point of this meta-ness is to draw parallels with current times, and it allows Wohl to air some opinions one generation might have about the other.
But an Act II scene that depicts a key moment in the courtship of Lizzie’s parents (dad is played by Charlie Thurston) feels solipsistic, shifting focus away from the group members—the play’s central characters—to indulge Wohl’s thoughts about her parents. It’s the only ’70s-set scene in Liberation that doesn’t involve the women’s group, and what transpires in it is covered when Lizzie later discusses her fiancé with the other women.
Another second-act scene is also something of a detour: A Black woman named Joanne (Kalya Davion), who’d appeared on stage in the first act for just a few seconds—to retrieve the backpack her son left in the gym—returns and chats with Celeste, the only African American member of the CR group. Joanne criticizes the movement, especially its domination by white women. While Davion and Lloyd play the scene beautifully, it is the only time that Liberation’s dialogue sounds like the characters are speaking in talking points rather than naturally conversing (or arguing). Furthermore, it comes off too obviously as a guilt-relieving effort by Wohl to acknowledge how race was often sidelined in second-wave feminism (and among her cast of characters?). And she basically invalidates the sequence by wrapping it up with Celeste saying to the playwright/daughter, “Maybe just stick to your own story. Stick to what you know.”
Kayla Davion and Charlie Thurston re-create the playwright’s family history in Liberation. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
Otherwise, Liberation is quite enjoyable. Its story and dialogue are firmly rooted in the women’s individual struggles, diverse personalities and journeys of growth rather than polemics, and Wohl—supported by director Whitney White and the designers—makes the era and the CR experience come alive.
Aidem is the standout of the generally fine cast. She gets in plenty of quips about her husband, but just as memorably delivers Margie’s plaintive insights, including heart-tugging lines about her cesarean scar, her decision to stay married and Ronald Reagan’s election. Lloyd also does some heavy lifting emotionally.
Costume designer Qween Jean dresses the cast in familiar ’70s fashions like bell-bottoms, corduroy, geometric patterns and bandanna headkerchiefs, while David Zinn’s set perfectly replicates a school gym, right down (up) to its championship banners—all boys’ teams, one might note.
Liberation runs through March 30 at Roundabout’s Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 W. 46th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with matinees at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday; roundabouttheatre.org.
Playwright: Bess Wohl
Director: Whitney White
Sets: David Zinn
Costumes: Qween Jean
Lighting: Cha See
Sound: Palmer Hefferan
Susannah Flood plays both a 1970s feminist and her daughter in the present day.
