Bess Wohl's "Liberation," which won the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, opened Oct. 23 at Berkeley Rep's Roda Theatre and runs through Nov. 29. Whitney White directs. SFist reports that her production moved from off-Broadway to Broadway and arrived in Berkeley "fully intact" to start its first tour, with two cast members from the Broadway run.
The story
In 1970 in Ohio, a group of women begins meeting in a rec center basement for consciousness-raising sessions. They're led by Lizzie, played by Katie Lowes of "Scandal." Lowes also plays Lizzie's daughter, who is trying to piece together her mother's past, and narrates. The cast includes Mary Gordon Murray as Margie, Felicia Curry as Celeste, Irene Sofia Lucio as an Italian immigrant in a green-card marriage, Britt Faulkner as Dora and Evelyn Spahr as Susan. SFist calls it "a consciousness-raising masterpiece."
Leave your phone
One scene features the women unclothed. To protect the performers, Berkeley Rep is using Yondr: phones are powered off and locked in pouches during the show, the East Bay Express reports. You keep your phone and can unlock it at intermission and after the play.
White last directed "Jaja's African Hair Braiding" in Berkeley in 2024. "Liberation means you're able to explore your political, intellectual, scholarly, motherly or sexual self in a free way," she told the Express.