Broadway Review: Call Me Izzy

You Go, Girl!

It is perhaps ironic that one of the best plays for Pride season is a one-woman show in which the woman is a cisgender heterosexual. And yet, the magic, if you will, of literature (and theater)  is the ability of a piece to speak to essential humanity, to the commonality of experience, and to connect us to something deeper in ourselves, without respect to a character or plot points.

The darkly lyrical and profoundly moving Call Me Izzy now at Studio 54 in Manhattan is just such a piece. In his portrait of Izzy, a woman in an abusive relationship, living in a trailer park in Mansfield, Louisiana, playwright Jamie Wax gives a searing portrait of the drive—indeed the imperative—for each of us to live authentically…even when we have to fight for it. It is only when we do that we have a hope of finding the peace that comes with being who we truly are.

When we first meet Izzy—known by most as Isabel—she is hiding in her bathroom writing on toilet paper with an eyebrow pencil. Because of events that will become clear, and his own shortcomings, her husband has forbidden her to write, but Izzy is driven to do so, and her restless spirit will find a way. Hence midnight writing while sitting on the toilet.

Why, you might ask, has she put up with this life? The easy answer is that she felt she had no choice. However, the more universal answer is that she felt trapped by her culture, its expectations, and the role that she was “supposed” to play. Thus, since discovering her passion for writing poetry while in high school, she’s kept her work hidden, private. On one level that’s served her need to express herself, to try to make sense of her life through art. However, the secrecy of a life in the closet where she hides all her work, takes its toll. She is trapped, unseen, living with perpetual disquiet because she must hide her authentic self from the world. That is the dramatic conflict of the piece, and for any of us who have resisted strictures, rejected convention and somehow summoned up the courage to live our true lives, Izzy speaks for all of us and reminds us that the cost of living our truth, however steep, is neither as great nor as soul-killing as denying our truth.

Playwright Wax brilliantly weaves together scenes of Izzy’s life with selections of her poetry that subtly illustrate the dichotomy of her existence. He also cleverly illustrates how class and status are no bulwark against societal restrictions, but to describe how would be to give away too much, and one of the joys of this play is to discover how deftly each piece of information is unfolded and allows the piece its poetic expansiveness.

Director Sarna Lapine guides and orchestrates the scenes perfectly. Lapine has broad experience directing opera, and there is a musicality to her work here that expresses the poetry of the language juxtaposed Izzy’s constrained existence. For instance, when we first meet Izzy, she is trying to work out a precise color of blue—based on the water in her toilet from the cleaning pellet she’s just dropped in the tank. She can’t help but find poetry in the quotidian.

All of this is perfectly expressed in the sublime performance of Jean Smart (currently making a smash in Hacks on Prime Video) as Izzy. It is a deep and courageous performance that takes us into the heart of the character and her life as a wife in a trailer and into the creative need that fuels her restlessness that only finds relief in her art. Smart plays all the characters, and she slips easily from one to the next, giving each clarity and distinction. At the same time, we are aware that we are watching Izzy’s interpretation of who these people are, which adds to the poignancy of the piece. It’s a level of nuance and artistry that’s very different from other one-person shows where the actor is required to shift gears and make the characters clearly separate. Here, the other characters flow more poetically…as one might expect given Izzy’s artistry…and Smart is magnificent with heart and nuance resonating throughout her spellbinding performance.

The scene design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams and the lighting by Donald Holder are almost expressionistic with moving panels that convey the claustrophobia of Izzy’s world, how she dreams of more, and, when she’s brave enough, the chance to open up to the world…even if the destination is unknowable.

It is ultimately, though, her name that tears your heart. From childhood, she always wanted to be called Izzy, but many people only called her Isabel, a way of negating and limiting her. In her journey, she goes from requesting to be called by her nickname to demanding that the world recognize her name is Izzy because that’s who she is—and only she gets to determine that.

Call Me Izzy
Studio 54
524 W. 54th Street, Manhattan
Tues-Fri 7 p.m.; Sat 8 p.m.; Weds, Sat, Sun 2 p.m.
$69-$299 here
90 mins, no intermission.

Production photos by Marc J. Franklin and Emilio Madrid, provided by the production.
Published June 13, 2025