Theatre in Review: Liberation (Roundabout Theatre Company)

	l-r: Audrey Corsa, Irene Sofia Lucio, Adina Verson, Kristolyn Lloyd. Photo: Joan Marcus

Liberation asks the question: From where we started, how did we end up where we are today? For playwright Bess Wohl, the starting point is circa 1970, when a young woman named Lizzie starts a women's rap group in her Ohio town. Lizzie knows a thing or two about sexism, having moved from Chicago to please her long-gone boyfriend; trying to launch a journalism career, she got hired at the local paper, but it's a daily struggle. She covers "obituaries and weddings--which in a way are the same thing," she says, adding, "I had to fight to get obituaries. And every day, I'm just hoping that someone will die in an interesting way, so I'll have something to write about."

Joining Lizzie in her conversational experiment are Susan, whose radical politics are indivisible from her take-no-prisoners manner (she is currently living out of her car); Isidora, an alarmingly frank Italian filmmaker who hopes to extricate herself from her green-card marriage in six months if she doesn't get pregnant first (abortion is not yet legal); Celeste, a book editor from New York who has come home to care for her ailing mother, an assignment with no clear end date; Margie, an empty-nester housewife stuck with a husband can barely stand and a routine she can't break out of; and Dora, whose job description at a wine and spirits company includes tolerating crude remarks and fighting off the handsy male staff.

Their grievances are many; their fears are palpable. Liberation effectively catches the spirit of a moment when everything in society seemed up for grabs, for good reason: These ladies are hemmed in on every front. (As Margie notes, "I've never paid a bill. I don't have a bank account. I can't drive.") The play's fascinating and highly tricky twist is that we are watching Lizzie's daughter (of the same name), a playwright, trying to recreate her mother's experience. She feels compelled to write about "a thing that they did, that they unquestionably did- so why does it feel somehow like it's all slipping away? And how do we get it back?" Not for nothing is Liberation subtitled "a play about things I don't remember."

Maybe Wohl is too young to recall those years but, to one who grew up back then, her play is remarkably on-target, right up to the nude encounter session that, startingly, begins the second act. ("This may be taking things a step too far," mutters Margie while Celeste clings to her bookbag for dear life.) These women are in a bind, ready for change, afraid of it, and yet are determined to press on. Betty Friedan, Ms. Magazine, and the Strike for Equality are all on the horizon but, for this messy, conflicted, argumentative crew, each step forward is momentous -- and often achieved at no small cost.

In Whitney White's smartly staged production, this wildly varied gallery of personalities takes the stage to share their caustic, candid, often hilarious ideas about a society that stifles and infantilizes them. Betsy Aidem's Margie comments mordantly on the action, chillingly assessing the state of her marriage and recounting in detail the episode when she destroys all the chinaware in her house. If Audrey Corsa's Dora is prim and shy at first -- she mistakes Lizzie's group for the local knitting circle -- but her sweet manner conceals a rapidly developing spine. Kristolyn Lloyd's Celeste is markedly sophisticated in her presentation but simmering with anger over her mother's increasing infirmity; she is also skilled at deflecting a closely held personal secret until the last minute. Irene Sofia Lucio's Isidora is a constant irritant with her unstoppable honesty, which includes a confession about her first time in a voting booth that sends the room into a tailspin.

As Lizzie, our emcee for the evening, and as Lizzie, the group's founder, Susannah Flood is wry, engaging, and a master diplomat, especially when defending herself against charges that she hasn't been honest with the group about her personal life. (In fact, she hasn't.) Calling up the spirit of the mother she still mourns and admittedly doesn't understand -- who gave up her freedom and career for a husband and children -- she is told, "I think it's so interesting that you're asking what we did wrong, instead of asking what's wrong with the world." This confrontation, which unfolds in the younger Lizzie's imagination, brims with tenderness and sorrow along with considerable irony. Kayla Davion, who steps into the role of the older Lizzie for this (and one other) scene, exudes warmth and wisdom, especially when gently informing her daughter that she has gotten practically everything wrong. (Charlie Thurston is charming as a young man who will prove decisive in the lives of both Lizzies.)

David Zinn's high school gym set is so real you can almost smell the sweat and Cha See's lighting effectively ushers us in and out of the past. Qween Jean's costumes constitute a catalog of period styles suitable to each character. Palmer Hefferan's sound design includes a delightful playlist of the era's hits, including "You're So Vain" and "California Dreamin'."

Wohl, who never repeats herself, also never shies away from a challenge, whether sympathetically investigating the porn industry in Pretty Filthy; devising a precise, nearly wordless scenario for Small Mouth Sounds; or writing demanding roles for child actors in Make Believe. Like the latter play, Liberation deftly employs a then-and-now structure, in this case, making the argument that the struggle for a better, more just, world is difficult, ongoing, and subject to setbacks. It's been done before, Wohl insists, and it can be done again. It's a message, wittily and movingly presented, that many of us need to hear just now. --David Barbour