Call Me Izzy

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Attempting to generate critical buzz sans critics, a large sign under the Studio 54 marquee hails Jean Smart’s solo performance in the new play Call Me Izzy as a “tour de force.” While it’s a safe bet some reviewer’s name could legitimately go beneath that hacky turn of phrase–if such attribution matters any longer–what precedes the self-congratulations is the more depressing matter: “85 minutes.” Confoundingly, modern audiences apparently need reassurance that quality theater won’t take up too much of their precious time.

Worries about the profligate power of art do not jibe with the sanguine message at the heart of playwright Jamie Wax’s Call Me Izzy which valorizes creativity to a fault. With his aunt’s painful life story as abiding inspiration, Wax, an arts and culture reporter for CBS News, spins a tender tribute to what she endured, how she endured it, and, given his script’s ambiguous ending, what she, perhaps, didn’t ultimately endure due to possessing a head that yearned for poetry in a world of stultifying and savage prose. But good intentions don’t necessarily make for a good play, especially if brevity is a priority.

Portraying the eponymous Izzy–or Isabelle per the formal preference of a long-ago teacher–the charismatic Smart earns our rapt attention throughout the play, though she cannot begin to overcome a first-person narrative that doesn’t know that person particularly well. Wax, with journalistic straightforwardness rather than dramatic breadth, essentially reduces Izzy to a collection of abject sorrows and artistic inclinations, much of which Izzy shares while on a lid-down toilet seat in a locked bathroom. A grim sanctuary, it’s where Izzy reads and writes poetry nightly, accomplishing the latter with an eyebrow pencil and a roll of toilet paper as her husband, Ferd, menacingly slumbers nearby in the bedroom of their Louisiana mobile home.

Married at the age of 17 with her parents’ consent but not her own, Izzy quickly grasps that she must intellectually tiptoe around her violently insecure spouse, whose cruel temperament decidedly worsens as the years pass. Refusing to let Izzy earn a cherished college degree, Ferd circumscribes her existence to no more than a stereotypical slog of wifely duties. Izzy still has her imagination for mental escape, but for a while that’s all she has, with the half-decade-older and alcoholic Ferd socially isolating Izzy within their marriage in order to conceal his monstrous behavior. To her tremendous joy, however, Izzy does eventually make a secret friend, Rosalie, who, after reading a sample of Izzy’s furtive poetry, encourages her to obtain a library card, which exposes Izzy to the works of William Shakespeare, a soul-stirring influence that heightens the lyricism already flowing from Izzy’s fertile mind.

Unfortunately, for Izzy, that library card comes with an increased risk to life and limb, as when she makes the mistake of using her newfound literary idol to try and comfort Ferd after he unfairly gets ignored for a promotion at work. Her compassionately apropos quote from Henry VI, Part I instinctively yields Ferd’s fist followed by even more brutishness. An inveterate optimist, the always good humored Izzy (does she have any other choice?) bounces back to gain a small concession from her despicable husband, tapping into his scraps of buried guilt to acquire resentful permission to attend a free poetry and creative writing course at the local community college.

But, once attained, this achingly simple desire soon loses its simplicity when Izzy wins a poetry contest that results in public recognition for not only her verse but also the autobiographical agony to which much of it attests. Whereas Izzy’s poetic ability previously offered her nothing more than personal solace, it now must lead to outright salvation or doom. Developing this tension clumsily, Wax has Izzy’s purported allies act in curious ways that put her in the utmost danger; for example, a couple of wealthy poetry benefactors come to Izzy’s home for dinner with her and Ferd to…who knows what? Make the unhinged Ferd as murderous as possible? One wonders, too, if this prosperous pair would care about Izzy’s plight if she weren’t gifted. How do the untalented get sympathy and help (or plays written about them)?

Besides sidestepping salient dramatic questions, Wax also demonstrates scant interest in exploring aspects of Izzy’s reality outside of her genius and suffering, with even these twin preoccupations receiving mere outlines. Expertly embellishing Wax’s anemic script, director Sarna Lapine stages Izzy’s occasional poetic recitals with beguiling grandeur, supported by expressionistic set, sound, and lighting design from Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, Beth Lake, and Donald Holder respectively. But, paradoxically, all of these skillful efforts, along with Smart’s considerably polished presence, only serve to starkly highlight what the playwright’s contribution is lacking: depth. It’s as if Wax figured he had done enough by just landing on the right side of a morally clear-cut situation, though, in our topsy-turvy times, making that mistake, I guess, is understandable.

Call Me Izzy (through August 17, 2025)

Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 833-274-8497 or visit http://www.callmeizzyplay.com

Running time: one hour and 25 minutes without an intermission