Theater: Call me Izzy

A one-woman play about a battered wife in rural Louisiana who escapes her trauma by writing poetry, Call Me Izzy doesn’t give itself much room to explore plot points and character development outside of exactly what you’d expect.

 
And that’s pretty much all it does. No unexpected side narratives, no quirky character details, no monsoons or mortgage foreclosures or school shootings or other outside forces that could reframe the story in a fresher context … and no overlooked elements that the audience would tacitly expect after reading my 18-word summary above.

 
Don’t get me wrong; I very much liked it. It didn’t set me on fire, but I was never bored or upset that I didn’t feel whisked away to someplace I haven’t seen outside of a TV movie of the week.

 
The script is charming when it needs to be and traumatic when it needs to be. But you kinda know where it’s probably going to end before it even starts. (I’m not going to tell you if you’re right or wrong in the interest of avoiding spoilers, but I saw it ending one of three ways and I was only a little bit off.)

I think the show wouldn’t have much emotional traction without a familiar (and beloved) name on the marquee. Because OF COURSE we all root for Izzy, but we wouldn’t really care if we couldn’t also root for Jean Smart.

 
She’s everything you want to see and more, by the way. She brings Izzy a mix of humor, humanity, heartbreak and hopelessness (I swear I didn’t plan all that alliteration when I started this sentence) in a nuanced, emotionally controlled (and sometimes not controlled) performance that makes you want to hug her protectively and also shake some damn sense into her.

 
On a side note: She spent almost the entire show sitting down with her leg up and being helped to move between scenes by tech crew. I assumed it was because of an injury Izzy’s violent husband inflicted on her and it would eventually be addressed. But it never was. And when I got home and googled the show I learned that Jean herself was injured and forging ahead with the show nonetheless. Which is both impressive and profoundly kind to her many fans.

 
Another side note: Patrick Paige and Paige Davis sat right in front of me. So I got to see some Broadway royalty to kick off my Belated Birthday Broadway Binge!