“Liberation,” a funny, probing and powerful new play by Bess Wohl that explores the women’s movement of the 1970s through the eyes of participants in a small consciousness-raising group, on Monday won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, one of the most prestigious honors in the field.
The Pulitzer board called the play “a striking blend of comedy and sincerity that explores the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s, using the story of the playwright’s mother to demonstrate how the movement grew out of conversation, and that anyone experiencing the play has joined the discussion.”
Wohl, in a telephone interview shortly after the announcement, called the prize “a huge honor.” She said she had been wanting to write a play about the legacy of second-wave feminism for about 15 years. She had written, workshopped and discarded several drafts, and then, during the coronavirus pandemic, had interviewed more alumnae of a consciousness-raising group and finished “Liberation.”
“I just feel incredibly grateful that the play was recognized, and it’s really meaningful to me especially now at a time when women’s rights are under assault, along with the rights of many, many Americans,” she said. “This is a play about people coming together and trying to change the world for the better, and I feel grateful to be able to put that message out into the world right now.”
The play is set in a basement basketball court at an Ohio recreation center; the narrator is a contemporary woman trying to understand her mother’s early activism, and traveling back in time to explore the consciousness-raising group. The play is partly inspired by Wohl’s own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, a writer who was a Ms. magazine contributor, belonged to a similar group in the 1970s.
“Liberation” had a Broadway run this season, opening in October to unanimously strong reviews.
“The miracle of this play is that the circle feels as if it is extending to embrace us all,” the critic Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote in The New York Times. She added, “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.”
The play, directed by Whitney White, struggled at the box office. The subject matter and the lack of well-known stars made it a tough sell, and it closed in February.
Even before the Pulitzer announcement, “Liberation” had a post-Broadway future. Several prominent regional theaters are expected to stage it over the next year, including Studio Theater in Washington; Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, Calif.; and Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Before arriving on Broadway, “Liberation” had an Off Broadway run early last year at the nonprofit Roundabout Theater Company, where the Times critic Jesse Green called it “gripping and funny and formally daring.”
Wohl, a 50-year-old New Yorker, had one previous play on Broadway, “Grand Horizons,” in 2020, and is also known for her breakout work, “Small Mouth Sounds,” which ran Off Broadway in 2015.
The other finalists for this year’s drama Pulitzer were “Bowl EP,” a lyrical play about a lazy romance between two skateboarding musicians, written by Nazareth Hassan, and “Meet the Cartozians,” exploring Armenian American identity at two moments a century apart, written by Talene Monahon.
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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