Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . .
No, Jean Smart, the star of Call Me Izzy, now at Broadway’s Studio 54, does not portray a Borough Park yeshivah boy in this one-woman play. The Izzy she plays is Isabel, a trailer park housewife in Mansfield, LA, with a talent for secretly writing beautiful poetry on cheap toilet paper; her abusive husband, Ferd, would probably rather have used it on his cracker butt.
In Call Me Izzy, written by Jamie Wax and directed by Sarna Lapine, the eponymous heroine moves about Mikiko Suzuki McAdams’s flexible set—lightly furnished rectangular areas defined by shifting background units—as she tells us her story. It’s a rather conventional one of growing up in her rural town, showing writing talent when a child, marrying a local boy at 17, not so much because she loved him but because she was checking off life’s limited boxes, like any Mansfield girl. Ferd, a pipefitter, the prototypical, beer-drinking, TV sports-addicted, foulmouthed, jealous redneck, treats her like second-class goods, beating her when it suits him, only for her to find excuses for his monstrous behavior.
Izzy loves writing poetry, which she must hide from Ferd, who fears that her talent—of which he has little comprehension—will diminish his status. So, using an eyeliner pencil, she writes her toilet-paper verses on the toilet seat lid, gradually accumulating hundreds of poems, which she hides in a Tampax box and in journals. Her horizon begins to expand when she and her mobile home friend, Rosalie, take a general education course in creative writing, which leads to Izzy winning money and a residency in a poetry writing contest funded by a Northern couple. Thus does she get the chance to break free from her marital prison.
There’s a lot more soap opera drama here, especially when it comes to the dangerous Izzy-Ferd relationship, but there are moments of comedy as well, as when she proudly announces that she “screwed” her writing teacher. But the play lacks dimension, the characters—all expertly limned by Smart—are stereotyped, the situations are contrived, and there are too many implausibilities, like how Izzy and Ferd—especially the latter—bond with the Jewish poetry patrons who show up at their trailer for dinner, unable to eat anything not kosher.
Most bothersome, though, is that for 85 minutes we must watch Jean Smart, an actress with a presence that reeks determination and strength, play a clearly intelligent woman as the frail, frightened, forgiving victim of the most brutal spousal mistreatment and disrespect. This allows the patient audience to release its frustration with applause when she finally takes matters into her own hands.
But that applause may be premature, as the ending is not as straightforwardly upbeat as it at first implies. As Izzy, having left Ferd a bitter, toilet-paper recrimination, waits for a bus, headlights appear, isolating her in their glare. The result is an annoying ambiguity you can wrestle with yourself.
Over the past 20 years, at least since her performance as the president on TV’s “24,” if not earlier, Jean Smart has moved steadily up the list of my favorite American actresses. Over that time, her versatility, glamour, and total believability, whether playing ruthless hillbillies or Las Vegas stand-up stars, have deeply embedded themselves in my mental fan file. Her recent work as Deborah Vance on “Hacks” has cemented her place as one of America’s foremost actresses, so I looked forward to seeing her on Broadway more than I have any other star in recent memory. Even my wife, who rarely accompanies me these days, could not resist the opportunity. Judging by the packed theatre, Jean Smart has clearly found her moment.
Smart is 73, but on the large Studio 54 stage (an awful place for a one-woman show), dressed (by Tom Broeker) in jeans and flannels, her shoulder-length wig blonde and frizzy, she almost gets away with looking younger, aided, of course, by the, soft, atmospheric lighting of Donald Holder. Izzy is about to tell us when she was born but never finishes the sentence; the circumstances suggest a woman perhaps no older than 50, if you stretch it. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she holds the stage tirelessly throughout, her voice and physical energy unflagging, her emotional and comic transitions clicking, her Louisiana accent consistent.
Seeing the great Jean Smart live on Broadway is a tasty treat, but how much more delicious it would have been if her vehicle were not so clunky.
Studio 54, 254 W, 54th Street, NYC through August 17.
Photos: Marc J. Franklin.
