There is a lot of star power treading the boards in New York Theatre these days.  Jean Smart is completing the circle by adding her superb performance as Isabelle Scutley A/K/A Izzy.  SUPERB.

The time is 1989, eons before the MeToo movement, in Mansfield, Louisiana, which is located as far away from Feminism as you can get and still be on the planet.   Mansfield is so far away from just about everything that it is on the cutting edge of nothing.  Izzy and her husband Ferd (yep that is how it is spelled) were married when she was 17 and fresh out of high school.  He was 22, and the five-year difference was irresistible, sort of. No one else had asked her, and as her parents seemed willing to let her go, she married Ferd without knowing if that was what she really wanted.  Better than being alone, as her mother always opined.

Ferd “works”.  Izzy “keeps house”. She also ducks and covers.  Izzy multitasks.

We are never given the time span of Izzy’s tale.  Decades anyway.  Long enough for Izzy to learn how to sense when a battle is coming on, because Ferd is in the mood, and how best to defend herself – that would be by doing nothing to make Ferd more angry.  Try as she might, however, she is not able to steer clear of his fists.  She bumps into them on a regular basis until it becomes, well, regular.

Like another recently opened show (Angry Alan starring John Krasinski) this is a story told be a person who wants to chat.  And, again, this is a story we don’t want to hear.  How can a person stay in such a situation, we think?  Why does she put up with him, we think?  I would never be caught in a situation like that, we think.  Ah yes…  Abuse has many colored variations.  Judgment has its many colored dream coat.  Pick just one color and you will be content to wrap yourself in its layers.

Writer Jamie Wax does not leave us in comfort.

What pulls Izzy, and for that matter US, out of the downward vortex is her secret weapon: Izzy is a writer.  She is, in fact, a poet.  She was inspired by Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” which she recited in fourth grade.  That poem charmed and changed her.  If Joyce Kilmer could write a poem like that, so could Izzy.  Even if Joyce Kilmer WAS a man.  (Look it up)  Ever since fourth grade Izzy has been writing.  “A different me,” she calls that writer.  And for years, she was the only person who saw what she wrote.  Until a new friend showed up at the trailer park and Izzy’s life took another dramatic turn.

How do we choose between the devil we know and the angel of the unknown who is knocking on our door?  What will it take for us to remove the hinges from that door and step through?  What do we risk?  What are the consequences that we will take with us like an old sack of laundry filled with clothes we just cannot let go of?

For the most part Mr. Wax’s script keeps us on his chosen paths.  There are a few logistical gaffes that could use attention, but Ms. Smart’s telling of the tale pulls us through these gullies and back onto dry land without a blink.  Her performance is so smooth – even through rough bits – that she appears not to be acting at all.  She simply transforms over and over again as she slips into each chapter of Izzy’s story, making what is a complicated feat of magic look easy.  Special mention should be made of wig and makeup design that bring the story home. Hair Design by Richard Marin, wig design by Justin Stafford, and Makeup Design by Suki Tsujimoto.

In the end, we are all left suspended in Izzy’s possibilities.  Nothing neat and tidy here, folks.  Just a wide open door with no hinges.

Kind of like life.

CALL ME IZZY, Written by Jamie Wax and directed by Sarna Lapine

WITH Jean Smart

The design team features Scenic Design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, Lighting Design by Donald Holder, Costume Design by Tom Broecker, and Sound Design by Beth Lake. Hair Design by Richard Marin, wig design by Justin Stafford, and Makeup Design by Suki Tsujimoto.

Studio 54(254 W. 54th St) from May 24 –August 17, 2025, TICKETS HERE