CALL ME IZZY

Review by Celia Ipiotis

Caught in the clutches of a small southern town offering few opportunities, Izzy buries herself in books and her writing. A gifted poet, Izzy lives in a Mansfield, Louisiana trailer park where she is married to a man who consistently brutalizes, and diminishes her. A hard working man, Ferd fears Izzy’s intellect and potential desire  for independence. The only recourse–his fist. 

Written by Jamie Wax, and effectively directed by Sarna Lapine, the incomparable Jean Smart portrays Izzy and the handful of characters outlining her life at Studio 54. In fact, Smart so convincingly assumes the roles of the supporting characters, I forgot she was alone on stage and looked for the names of the actors in my Playbill.

Caught between a mind that hungers for nourishment and a caged life, Izzy thrills at the sound of words, the rhythms of poetry and the fascinating portals opened through her imagination. Izzy knows she is caught in a hamster wheel of desire and despair, but despite her daily hardships and deferred dreams, Izzy does not feel sorry for herself. 

When the audience first spots Izzy, she sits on a commode rapidly writing on toilet paper. Once her thoughts are completed, she tears the tissue and stuffs it in a safe place–a menstrual pad box.

From that secure spot, she relays her story. 

Someone who loves school, books and poetry in particular, Izzy is a captive of her circumstances. Her happy place resides in a scrapbook of her poems. Serendipitously, she meets a woman who suggests Izzy take a community college class in poetry. Worried about her husband’s reaction, Izzy finally screws up the courage to sign up. Not surprisingly, the poetry professor recognizes her talent and asks Izzy to submit one of her poems for a competition that offers a stipend along with a writing residency.

Reluctantly, she submits a poem only to learn she is the winner. Izzy panics when the story breaks in the local newspaper because she fears her husband’s reaction. Threatened by her success, he brutally beats Izzy who believes she deserves it. 

Unexpectedly, the sponsors of the poetry competition decide to meet their newest winner and arrive in Mansfield to meet for dinner. Terrified, Izzy begs her husband to behave when they arrive for a very spare dinner of spam. Soon enough, the woman perceives Izzy’s predicament and in a candid exchange, she lets Izzy know that you don’t have to be poor to endure abuse, because it happens to everyone including herself.

Brilliant at balancing her terror against her unquenched desire to write, Jean Smart is at once arrestingly fragile and heroically determined.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis