Liberation ★★★★★

The fact that the fantastic Liberation has made its way to Broadway is reason for celebration. An instant critical hit when it opened Off-Broadway in February, this ambitious play about a women’s consciousness-raising group returns with its original cast fully intact, ready to reach and entertain the larger audiences it so richly deserves.

Playwright Bess Wohl subtitles the work “a memory play about things I don’t remember,” an apt description for a show that wholeheartedly embraces metatheatricality. Liberation simultaneously takes place in the present and in the 1970s; characters sometimes interrupt the play directly (or change identity and age in an instant), and everyone questions the existence of an objective truth.

Think Pirandello, but funnier. Far, far funnier.

Also like Pirandello, Wohl is a writer who’s unafraid to take risks. Wohl is, after all, the scribe behind the wildly brilliant Small Mouth Sounds, a play about a silent retreat with almost no dialogue. The Ohioan basement basketball court where Liberation is set is far less quiet. Words abound here, and they – and the characters who speak them – are glorious: funny, moving, and often surprising.

Lizzie (Susannah Flood), Liberation’s protagonist, playwright, and guide, starts the show with warm greetings and breaks down the fourth wall – SMASH! – before it can even be considered, putting the audience at ease with the unusual structure ahead:

“They took your phones. Are we okay? Are we okay. I promise you’ll get them out of that pouch at the end of this — and speaking of — how long is this going to take, right? I know that’s all anyone really wants to know: the running time.”

And shortly thereafter:

“Fear not. Surely you’ve noticed all of those six-hour, eight-hour, ten-hour plays are by men with no children? A woman with children would never. Could never. You know I’m right.”

Lizzie then tells the audience that her mother has recently passed before introducing four of the play’s five other primary figures: homemaker Margie (Betsy Aidem, brilliant as always), temporarily unhoused Susan (Adina Verson, hilarious), intellectual Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd, fierce and touching), and secretary Dora (Audrey Corsa, delightful).

“So. These are the women. Some of them, anyway. These were my mother’s friends, before she had me. And these are not the real people, obviously — I mean, these are real people, hi — and we are in — work with me here…”

The sixth major character, Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio, fiery), an Italian activist in a green-card marriage, is late and gets her own grand entrance:

“Ahhh, sorry, I had a very hard time finding the room. A very hard time! The flyer’s saying eight.”

Unexpected arrivals and jumps in time are the norm in Liberation, and the delightful result is that even though the play is almost wholly a series of talky group sessions that take place over a period of years, one’s attention is never tempted to stray. And despite the play’s challenging structure, Wohl, the cast, and director Whitney White manage to delineate every beat, ensuring constant clarity of story and character development; not a moment is confusing.

In addition to keeping tight, concise reins on a show that could easily meander or peak too soon, White has also coaxed superlative performances from the entire cast, all of whom have deepened their performances from the show’s first go-round Off-Broadway. This ensemble is an embarrassment of riches, led by the wondrously vulnerable and relatable Flood, with excellent, previously unmentioned support from Charlie Thurston and the irrepressible Kayla Davion.

As the play likes to hop back and forth through time, so shall this review. Remember Lizzie talking to the audience about taking away their phones and putting them in pouches? That’s because the scene at the top of the second act has the women all completely naked.

As the show’s advertising is now leaning heavily into this part of the play, this news is hardly a spoiler – and apparently, word had gotten round even when the show was in previews Off-Broadway. When I saw Liberation in February, the elderly gentleman sitting next to me turned at intermission and huffily said:

“I was told that all the women were going to take their clothes off. No one told me I had to wait so long and listen to so much talking. I’ve had enough.”

And he left.

Now that the show is back on the boards, I hope he returns. Not for expected titillation (the scene is tastefully performed and ultimately quite moving), but because he is exactly the type of man who needs to consider why a play like this has been written and what he can do to better help the women in his life achieve what all the women in Liberation are seeking.