Finding a fresh voice in the memory-play genre is no easy task, yet Bess Wohl’s Liberation achieves it with surprising grace. The play unfolds deliberately, gradually filling you with so much emotion that by the end you feel cracked open in the best way. It is heartfelt, funny, unsettling, and deeply human all at once.

Liberation opens in the present day with a woman grieving the loss of her mother, Lizzie. Played by Susannah Flood, she struggles to reconcile the traditional wife and mother she knew with the ambitious young journalist her mother once was. As the story moves back and forth between the present and the 1970s, we meet Lizzie and the five women who formed a consciousness-raising group, each yearning for more than the world seemed willing to give them.

At the center of it all is Lizzie, a University of Chicago-trained journalist who ends up writing wedding announcements and obituaries. Her restlessness is palpable, and to find purpose, she starts a weekly gathering for women who need connection just as much as she does. The group brings together women from entirely different walks of life, each searching for answers, each trying to hold themselves together in their own ways.

The play takes place in a basement basketball gym in Ohio. Designed with dusty nostalgia, the set feels like a space frozen in time, perfect for confessions, revelations, and the kind of honesty that emerges when the world feels distant.

What makes Liberation so remarkable is how it weaves feminism into the story not as a lecture, but through the lived experiences of these women. Their conversations about identity, ambition, motherhood, and desire are messy, funny, heartbreaking, and completely real. Watching their struggles and triumphs makes it clear how the questions they faced in the 1970s still resonate today.

There are moments of raw vulnerability that feel almost sacred. The women onstage allow themselves to be seen fully and without armor. Humor punctuates the intensity, making the emotional beats land even deeper. Another standout choice is how the play engages the audience, breaking the fourth wall in both subtle and bold ways. At times, it feels as if the women are speaking directly to you, inviting you into the circle rather than keeping you on the outside.

I cried. I laughed. I walked out changed. Very few plays capture grief, womanhood, and generational connection with this level of clarity.

If you can, see Liberation with your mom. Experiencing the story together adds another layer of meaning, especially as you notice the echoes between her generation and ours. More than a play, Liberation feels like a conversation you continue long after leaving the theater.

Get your tickets here.