Liberation review

The cast of Liberation (Photo: Joan Marcus)

A daughter tries to discover who her late mother was in the early 1970s in Liberation, Bess Wohl's sprawling, very personal new play about the era's women's lib movement. It's intermittently intriguing as it depicts a group of women struggling with issues that remain at the forefront of American society (and thankfully some that have since been resolved), but like another recent play about feminist activists, the musical Suffs, it says more about the movement than about the people who were part of that movement.

And that's why it never fully coalesces, despite Wohl's playful yet sensitive approach to the material, and a stellar cast, directed by Whitney White. Breaking the fourth wall, a young woman (Susannah Flood) tells the audience that she remembers her recently deceased mother as a rather conventional wife and parent. How, she wonders, did a feminist who once formed a consciousness-raising group in Ohio, end up like that?

Having spoken to friends of her mother, she re-creates their meetings, playing her mom, Lizzie, and occasionally stepping out to comment on the proceedings. The participants are a cross section of womanhood. Susan (Adina Verson), a lesbian estranged from her family, is a recent arrival in Ohio. Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd), the only Black woman in the group, has returned home from New York to care for her mother. The oldest participant, Margie (Betsy Aidem) is at a crossroads with her husband now that their sons are grown. And the two Doras are a contrast in personas, at least initially. Outspoken Isadora (Irene Sofia Lucio), from Spain, plans to divorce her husband as soon as she's eligible for a green card, while liquor company employee Dora (Audrey Corsa) thought she was attending a knitting circle.    

For two and a half hours the women share their frustrations and their breakthroughs. They join forces and try to prevent disagreements from tearing them apart. Lizzie's reluctance to tell them that she's dating someone, Bill (Charlie Thurston), and plans to marry him and move to New York creates a surprising amount of intolerance among the women.

An especially daring and effective scene opens the second act: The women conduct their meeting in the nude so they can discuss that they like and don't like about their bodies, something Ms. magazine encouraged at the time, and very little is hidden from the audience. (To ensure that no one takes photos that wind up on the internet, patrons must secure their phones in pouches for the duration of the play.)

Wohl wants to give everyone their say. The only female character who isn't part of the group is a Black mother, Joanne (Kayla Davion), who gets into a debate with Celeste about the role of women of color in the movement. It's certainly a topic worthy of discussion, but an awkward fit for this play. 

The most effective scene comes near the end, when Aidem steps into the role of the narrator's late mother to comfort her — and tell her that she got a lot of things wrong. It's effective because it's such a deeply personal moment, and too often in Liberation, Wohl reaches for the political at the expense of the personal.  

English review

Hadi Tabbal and Marjan Neshat (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Learning a second language is more than an academic exercise for the characters in English, Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of 2023. Now receiving its Broadway premiere courtesy of the Roundabout Theatre Company, it's a wonderfully intimate, thought-provoking drama that delves into the impact of language on the soul.

Set in an immersive English-language class in Iran in 2008, the play focuses on four students and one instructor, for whom speaking English can be liberating but can also mean leaving behind a part of themselves and their culture. Elham (Tala Ashe) needs to pass the TOEFL test in order to teach and study in Australia. Roya (Pooya Mohseni) wants to be able to talk to her granddaughter, who is being raised in Canada. Omid (Hadi Tabbal), who's rather proficient with English, and Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), the youngest of the bunch, are hoping to get U.S. visas. Overseeing the course is Marjan (Marjan Neshat), a middle-aged woman who lived in England for several years and has a fondness for English-language rom-coms.

Throughout the semester the five struggle not only with how to speak the language but who they become when they do. Elham, clearly an overachiever in her studies, wrestles with her new language and challenges Marjan's demand that they don't speak Farsi in the classroom. (When characters do talk in their native language, they speak in unaccented English; the rest of the time their English has an accent attached.) Roya, the oldest of the bunch, can't cope with who she and her son become when they converse in English. 

Toossi has created a rich, diverse array of characters and, under the direction of Knud Adams, the cast brings them to life with beautiful delicacy. This 100-minute production, which originated at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2022, has transferred with its cast and creative team intact. One problem if you're sitting off to the sides: Marsha Ginsberg's revolving cubical classroom may not always offer the best vantage points at all times.

Even so, English is that all-too-rare play that has something fresh to say, and says it in a language all its own.