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| 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.
