We take a look at what is being said about the new play by Tony Award nominee Bess Wohl…
The Guardian: **** “Playwright Bess Wohl looks back on her mother’s activism in a moving and cleverly constructed look at how to balance the personal and the political.”
The New York Times: “By no means do I want to give the impression that “Liberation” is the kind of good-for-you didactic show that feels like an assignment. Not only does its sustained pace make the story downright suspenseful — we quickly become invested in these women and wonder what will become of them — but spending time in their company is also an unadulterated pleasure. Directed with sensitivity by Whitney White and performed by a cast preternaturally in sync, the production looks at community and individuality, determination and self-determination, in an elegiac and impassioned manner.”
Variety: “a brilliant, well-acted, and sobering account of the women’s rights movement, complicity, and the lens through which we view our caretakers — namely, our mothers. Though it does lean toward melodrama, dragging just a bit in the final moments for a shaky ending, the core of the play is resounding, reminding us all that freedom in a patriarchal and white supremacist-led nation is a constant and continual fight.”
Vulture.com: “Both times I’ve seen the play—Off Broadway this spring, now returning in a larger space on Broadway—I’ve felt unprepared for the emotional wallop it lands, the way that Wohl’s work becomes cosmically immense without leaving that gym basement. I think it gets there by staying so focused on the quietly radical thing these women are doing with each other, and which Wohl is making the rest of the audience engage in. Maybe you should be scared, because listening could change you too.”
Time Out : ***** “Liberation wants to get you talking, and it gives you plenty to talk about. Whitney White’s direction elicits a triumph of ensemble acting whose equipoise is a perfect realization of the play’s own themes. The actors work so well together, and so unselfishly, that it seems absurd to single any of them out.”
The Wrap: “Wohl fills “Liberation” with all sorts of wonderful side trips, such as the snap critique by one woman of David Mamet’s play “Oleanna.” But through it all, the female characters are never presented as a bunch of victims.”
Talkin’ Broadway: “Every cast member seems to have sprung fully formed from the playwright’s imagination. This is one of those rare productions in which each performer has become so entwined with the character that all future iterations will most assuredly be a pale imitation. In truth, I look forward to testing my hypothesis.”
Entertainment Weekly: “Liberation may not be able to answer life’s difficult questions, but it knows that it’s important to foster these conversations and to come together to try our best to make the world a better place — especially when history often seems hellbent on repeating itself. And, four steps out of the theater, it’s clear that messaging has hit its mark when a young woman turns to her friend and brightly declares, “I’m fired up!”
The Daily Beast: “Liberation has a lot to say about careers, motherhood, sexuality, independence, harassment, equal pay, and workplace mistreatment (and many other things besides), but it is resolutely not a pamphlet or polemic. Its arguments about women’s place, power, and agency are rooted not just in experiences, but in questions—some of the answers to which emerge, while others remain elusive.”
amNY: ““Liberation” is not an easy play. It’s demanding, ambitious, and intentionally messy. Some of its observations, such as the suggestion that marriage and motherhood can erase one’s sense of self, remain deeply relatable and unsettling. It offers no answers, only more debate. At a time when the idea of progress feels fragile, Wohl’s play insists that the search for freedom, whether personal or political, is never finished.”
New York Theater.me: ” is another dramatically inventive play by a writer who has a long list of them, starting (for me) with “Small Mouth Sounds,” which tells the story of six characters at a silent retreat using almost no dialogue.”
NYStage Review: ***** “So much of Liberation—Wohl’s best play, and she’s had some excellent ones, including Small Mouth Sounds and Make Believe—feels like a radical act.”
To find out more visit: https://liberationbway.com/