Set in 1989, in a trailer in rural Mansfield, Louisiana, Call Me Izzy by Jamie Wax, now playing a limited Broadway engagement at Studio 54, tells the story of an emotionally and physically abused wife and gifted poet, whose brutal husband won’t allow her to pursue her dream of being a writer. Directed by Sarna Lapine and starring six-time Emmy winner and Tony nominee Jean Smart, the one-woman narrative is presented in direct-address to the audience in a spot-on southern dialect and accent, with a full range of emotions, gripping enactments of the key episodes and characters in her life, touches of humor to alleviate her harrowing experiences, and a recognition of the power of writing to release the pent-up pain of her untenable situation. The question remains: if she’s smart enough to comprehend Shakespeare and to create such eloquent, perceptive, moving, and lauded poetry, why has she stayed and will she ever find the courage to go?
The show opens with Izzy in the bathroom, dropping bluing tablets into the toilet and waxing poetic about the many shades there are of blue, then writing on a roll of toilet paper and hiding it in a large tampon box, where she’s sure her husband would never look or find it. She begins to tell her personal story of a mother who belittled her, a marriage at the young age of seventeen to a man five years older, and his increasing hostility towards her intelligence, reading, and writing skills (with which she persists in secret), her opportunities for getting a fully funded advanced education and writing residency (both of which she declines, in deference to his orders), and budding success in her thwarted career, which culminates in physical violence and death threats against her, motivated by his growing insecurity about his own failings and his egomaniacal concern about her thinking she’s better than him.
She endures it all for far too many years, sharing her thoughts and some other secretive behavior, and giving some psychological insights into her enabling acquiescence, trying her best to placate him, even after he finds and destroys the valued journal of her previous writings, explodes with anger rather than congratulating her on winning a $15,000 prize (more money than she’s ever seen) and being featured with a collection of her poems in a magazine (which she tries to keep from him, but his co-workers show and taunt him about), and makes the transition from controlling her and her choices to slapping, choking, and beating her.
Smart’s physical recreations of the shocking incidents are disquietingly believable, engendering gasps from the audience at the performance I attended, just as her acerbic jokes about her husband and their relationship elicited laughter and applause for her character’s spirit and tenacity. What doesn’t hold up for me is her repeated refusal to accept the help of her teachers and her friend and neighbor, choosing instead to decline the chances she’s been given to advance herself and to remove herself from a husband she doesn’t love and needs to escape, though she resists being silenced and continues her brilliant writing without his approval and at the expense of her own safety and well-being. There’s nothing brilliant about that.
The artistic design is also problematic. Though the monologue takes place in a trailer, the modest wide-open interior (set by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams) is not the claustrophobic tumbledown home we would expect and the upstage black wall that slides open and closed to reveal a projection screen with a view outside of the changing sky and trees feels too sleek, post-modern, and incompatible with Izzy’s locale and story. Costumes (by Tom Broecker) of simple jeans, plaid shirts, and a bathrobe, along with hair (by Richard Marin), wig (by Justin Stafford), and make-up (by Suki Tsujimoto), define her simple country stylings, and sound (by Beth Lake) realistically captures the ambient noise of vehicles, thunder, knocks on the door, and the approaching steps of her menacing husband. But the colors and changes in lighting (by Donald Holder) and original music (by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield), intended to accentuate the shifting moods and segments of the story, again feel abstract and at odds with her humble place and position, and the large space of Studio 54 defies the intimacy of her revelations. This is a show that would be better suited to a small theater with a stage that is close-up to the audience.
Smart offers a tour-de-force performance in an uneven production that, although Izzy bares her soul and embraces her writing, still leaves us questioning her decision to remain so long in a toxic loveless marriage despite the advocates who offered her support, encouragement, and opportunities to leave. The end result seems to be, from a feminist perspective, an unfortunate cliché of victim blaming.
Running Time: Approximately 85 minutes, without intermission.
Call Me Izzy plays through Sunday, August 24, 2025, at Studio 54 Below, 254 W 54th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $69-399, including fees), go online, or find discount tickets at TodayTix.
