‘LIBERATION’: Audrey Corsa, Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio & Adina Verson. Photo: Little Fang.

LIBERATION
By Bess Wohl
Directed by Whitney White
Through February 1, 2026
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West 48^th Street
https://liberationbway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Stories about feminism and the women’s movement more than 50 years ago might seem anachronistic to some. However, Bess Wohl’s Liberation, set in Ohio in 1970, is quite relevant and topical today. It’s disturbing to think that the same rights and freedoms feminists fought for back then are all issues women still face in 2025 America. Women must still fight for the right to choose and equal pay. They battle sexism and grapple with double standards in a male-dominated society. This production (which premiered off-Broadway this past winter at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre) features one of the best ensemble casts on the New York stage in years.

‘Consciousness raising’ in an Ohio town

Lizzie (Susannah Flood) is a journalist in a small Ohio town and decides to start a “consciousness-raising” group. They meet weekly in a rec center’s basketball court to talk about women’s issues and ongoing struggles with men. She acts as narrator for the tale.

The story of young Lizzie is interspersed with that of her daughter in the 2020s. Ms. Flood also portrays Lizzie’s daughter in the present day, interviewing original group members years after her mother’s death. Her daughter wants to discover why her mother went from being a feminist activist to a more traditional woman later in life. Lizzie’s daughter wants to find out what happened to the group’s idealism over the years.

…And ladies of the club

One of the unique aspects of Liberation is the way it shows a microcosm of women from diverse backgrounds, races and socioeconomic levels, all facing similar oppression simply because of their gender. The only other women’s group that meets at the venue is a knitting circle.

Members of the sisterhood

The sisterhood of Lizzie’s group includes Margie (Betsy Aidem), the oldest member who has been married for decades to the same man. Joanne (Kayla Davion) is the group’s first Black member. She’s an author and feels slightly out of place because, as an African American, her level of oppression is far worse as a female woman of color.

Dora (Audrey Corsa) stumbles into the group unexpectedly, thinking it was a knitting club, but she’s frustrated as a beautiful woman working for a wine company, forced to grapple with sexism and objectification by the men at her job.

In addition, Isidora (Irene Sofia Lucio) is from Italy and the only immigrant. She has a unique perspective on women’s issues that differs from the American women. Susan (Adina Verson) is a radical feminist, while Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd) is a Black woman who joins the group later in the story. Bill (Charlie Thurston) plays a key role in young Lizzie’s past.

A memory play from a woman’s perspective

Lizzie tells the audience at the beginning of the show that Liberation is a memory play. The show’s full title is Liberation: A Memory Play About Things I Don’t Remember. Memory plays often feature a main character recalling past events. Prime examples include The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Betrayal by Harold Pinter.  Lizzie uses this method as present-day narrator to examine her mother’s past.

Women’s struggles remain consistent over decades

Playwright Bess Wohl captures the essence of intergenerational conflicts and the thorny issues related to activism. Ms. Wohl also shows how feminism and the ongoing fight for women’s equality are both different for every woman based on her circumstances and identity. However, the need for women to be heard, taken seriously by men, be paid a fair wage and also appreciated is something that has not changed much since the dawn of the women’s movement. Women today still are expected to have and raise children, work, manage a household and also live up to overwhelming expectations created by men and society in general.

Razor-sharp direction of an excellent ensemble

Director Whitney White does an outstanding job of directing this excellent ensemble. There are so many fine performances here that it’s difficult to single out any as standouts because each actress is so great in her own right. Susannah Flood does a remarkable job as narrator, young Lizzie and her daughter. Betsy Aidem is sensational as Margie, the eldest group member who has struggled living the only life she knows as wife to man who can do little for himself. Audrey Corsa is often poignant as the beautiful, naïve yet powerful career woman Dora. Kayla Davion as the intellectual Joanne is always entertaining with her nonstop wit, and Kristolyn Lloyd as Celeste, Irene Sofia Lucio as Isidora and Adina Verson as the militant feminist Susan are equally superb.

Liberation is a brutally realistic, consistently funny “herstory” lesson that speaks volumes about the inequitable state of women in past and present America. The play shows why there should not be anything “radical” about treating women as equal to men and giving women the respect they deserve. Without question, Liberation is one of the best dramas of the year.

Published November 1, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on October 29, 2025

‘LIBERATION’: Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio, Betsy Aidem & Audrey Corsa. Photo: White Fang.

‘LIBERATION’: Susannah Flood & Betsy Aidem. Photo: Little Fang.

‘LIBERATION’: The cast. Photo: White Fang.

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‘SLAVE PLAY’ (On ground, left to right): Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusati-Moyer, Sullivan Jones, Annie McNamara, Joaquina Kalukango, Paul Alexander Nolan. (In red boxes, left to right): Irene Sofia Lucio & Chalia La Tour. Photo: Matthew Murphy

SLAVE PLAY
By Jeremy O. Harris
Directed by Robert O’Hara
Through January 19, 2020
Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
212-239-6200, https://slaveplaybroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Sex and race are topics that push everyone’s proverbial buttons, and the two themes are explored via outrageous extremes in Jeremy O. Harris’s provocative Slave Play.

The show, in the beginning, is a series of uncomfortable, absurdist S&M sexual vignettes but ends up actually being a send-up of psychotherapy and relationships. It also tries to make serious statements about race in America. Playwright Jeffrey O. Harris’s overlong one-act tale mostly chronicles, in the first hour, titillating simulated sex scenes among interracial couples, followed by a second hour that explains, from a psychological and historical perspective, everything we’ve seen previously.

The scenes in the show’s first half are stereotypical in the absolute worst porn-style way and so intentionally offensive that they just look absurd and pointless. In the first vignette, Kaneisha (Joaquina Kalukango) is an African slave shown twerking to Rihanna’s “Work” while white overseer Jim (Paul Alexander Nolan) reveals how much he likes her, brandishing a whip as she calls him “master” (please, don’t ask).

There is the antebellum older white woman Alana (Annie McNamara), seen sporting 19^th century finery, while speaking in derogatory sexual innuendoes to her well-dressed, younger black lover Phillip (Sullivan Jones). She calls him her “Mandingo” (perhaps an homage to the awful “blaxploitation” film and novel of the same name). Phillip must endure Alana’s racist blather about his ample endowment. Eventually she whips out a dildo and penetrates him, asking if he likes her being “the man.”

We also have the gay male couple, Gary (Ato Blankson-Wood) and Dustin (James Cusati-Moyer). Dustin is a white indentured servant who is overseen by African American stud Gary. They both sport black Calvin Klein underwear and leather boots and you can draw your own conclusions about what happens next.

In the next hour, we learn that all this racially charged sex way down in pre-Civil War Dixie is an erotic phantasmagoria of fantasies of role playing and we’re really watching three interracial couples in “antebellum sexual performance therapy.” There is a lot of bantering from the couples and pretentious psychobabble from the two therapists, Teá (Chalia LaTour) and Patricia (Irene Sofia Lucio). The point (or lack thereof) of this group study is for the couples to better understand their racial standing, only to pulverize each relationship. Supposedly, they are told, in interracial couples someone is “the prize” and someone is “the master,” everyone is doomed to their own self-destruction, blah, blah, blah.

Despite the play’s shortcomings, there are some good performances here from cast members who play dual roles as both modern couples and their antebellum counterparts. Joaquina Kalukango is one of the most outstanding, displaying many raw emotions, and she is particularly effective in one of the show’s final scenes. As Gary, Ato Blankson-Wood is perfect, especially in a therapy sequence in which he goes off on his partner Dustin.

Perhaps playwright Jeremy O. Harris wanted to write a play that addressed, in a lighthearted way, the important topics of racism and America’s sad history of slavery while also examining modern-day human sexuality. Slave Play originated Off Broadway last year at the New York Theatre Workshop and in a smaller, less commercial production this show works best. However, as directed by Robert O’Hara for the Broadway stage, it is too flawed and ultimately unsatisfying to work as either a solid comedy or eye-opening drama about such sensitive subject matter.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 12, 2019
Reviewed at October 10, 2019 press performance.

‘SLAVE PLAY’: Annie McNamara & Sullivan Jones. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘SLAVE PLAY’: James Cusati-Moyer & Ato Blankson-Wood. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘SLAVE PLAY’: (Left to right) Ato Blankson-Wood, Chalia La Tour, Joaquina Kalukango (kneeling), Irene Sofia Lucio, Sullivan Jones, Annie McNamara, Paul Alexander Nolan, & James Cusati-Moyer. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

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