There isn’t a great deal of originality in Jamie Wax’s new play, Call Me Izzy, but it may well mark the first time a white porcelain toilet has been featured so prominently in a Broadway production.
The 90-minute, one-woman show opens in the bathroom of a mobile home, situated in a trailer park in rural Louisiana, where Isabelle “Izzy” Scutley (Jean Smart, Hacks) spends much of her time, scribbling on sheets of toilet paper with a mascara pen. Poetically, she describes the various shades of blue produced by the disinfectant tablets that she gingerly drops in the tank. To her, they are beautiful. To her husband, Ferd, not so much.
“He hates the blue cleaner I put in the toilet almost as much as he hates…my writin’,” she tells us in a southern drawl. Izzy uses the space as her only oasis of calm, and after filling the cotton white squares with words, she gently folds them and hides them where she’s certain Ferd will never look — in a Tampax box.
Ferd is the archetypal bad guy here. He’s seven years older than Izzy and bosses her around like chattel. The two got married one week after Izzy’s high school graduation because “it was expected” and “the natural order of things.” As Izzy’s mother pointed out, “The pickins’ in this town are real slim. It’s better to have a broken arm than no arm at all.” In Izzy’s case, she would have done just fine with one less limb.
Thanks to her friend and neighbor Rosalie, Izzy is introduced to a writing class at the Northwest Louisiana Community College. It’s taught by Professor Dwight Heckerling, a “sexy little British bald man.” It’s only a matter of time before Izzy falls under Heckerling’s spell in one of the show’s rare moments of comic relief.
Smart, an incredibly engaging performer who is comfortable in any medium, has been handed material that feels recycled from numerous portrayals of domestic abuse that have come before, the most recent being Jenna Hunterson, the waitress and pie maker at the center of Sara Bareilles’ Waitress.
The material fares better when Wax weaves Izzy’s plight with that of Jack and Irene Levitsberg, an affluent couple from New York who have come to award Izzy with a cash prize for her writing. Ferd is surprised by the visit and threatens to beat Izzy once they leave. But Ferd puts on a fake face and acts like a supportive spouse.
After several drinks, Jack and Ferd bond and, in a quiet moment after dinner, Izzy and Irene share a moment that unites them. Irene was once struck by her husband, and even though it never happened again, she confesses that “there are all kinds of ways to beat a person down. There are all kinds of ways to be punished.” It’s a painful but beautiful connection, proving that spousal abuse transcends socioeconomic class and geography and that country dwellers aren’t always that much different from city slickers.
Whether Izzy flees her situation is left for the audience to decide. Either way, it’s a tough reminder that there are still those stuck in dire, domestic straits with no escape plan. For them, and for those who have successfully escaped harmful relationships, Call Me Izzy may be too triggering.
It’s hard to imagine the show without Smart, who was apparently the actor Wax had in mind when he wrote it. It’s an ideal choice, given Smart’s portrayal of Charlene, a southerner in Designing Women, the 1980s sitcom that catapulted her to national stardom.
As Izzy, she imbues her character with a balanced blend of steeliness and vulnerability and mines the sensitive material to find appropriate moments of humor. Smart is a master at taking seemingly innocuous lines and spinning them into gold. We are always rooting for her, but only wish that Wax’s material would rise to the stratsopsheric level of her acting abilities.
At the recent Tony Awards, it was announced that Broadway had its highest-grossing season in history. This was no doubt aided by the star power of Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello and George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck. Smart will skew the bell curve again with a top ticket price of $399. You may want to call your sugar daddy.
Call Me Izzy (★★★☆☆) is playing on Broadway at Studio 54, 254 West 54th St. in New York City through Aug. 17. Tickets are $69 to $399. Visit www.callmeizzyplay.com.
The late Thomas Wolfe was wrong. His famous novel and quote "you can't go home again" was meant to invoke a feeling that the glory days of youth cannot be recreated later in life. Often, it's a painful truth. Fans old enough to recall the 1960s ring-a-ding-ding heydays of Las Vegas and New York's Copacabana, however, should once again relive fond memories at Broadway's Circle in the Square, home to the biographical musical Just in Time.
Jonathan Groff, who took home a Tony award last season for the hugely praised revival of Merrily We Roll Along stars as Bobby Darin, a pop singer who rose to prominence in 1958 and continued to wow audiences through the sixties with hit songs, a movie career that included an Academy Award nomination, a relationship with fellow singer, Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence), and a marriage to one-time co-star Sandra Dee (Erika Henningsen).
Do we never tire of Stephen Sondheim's music? Not if it is performed with flawless finesse by a troupe of performers who breathe fresh interpretations into the songs that musical theater lovers have heard umpteen times.
Lucky for us, this is the case with the new Broadway revue, Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, a two-and-a-half-hour soiree that showcases the late composer.
Director Matthew Bourne was tasked with a near-quixotic challenge to whittle down Sondheim's body of work into one show. Some will leave the theater not having heard their favorites.
Still, there is more than enough to satisfy even the most ardent acolyte. Even the three shows for which Sondheim contributed only the lyrics: West Side Story, Gypsy, and The Mad Show are represented.
Sometimes, I sit in a Broadway theater with genuine bewilderment and confusion. Is this production really as awful as I think it is? Am I the only one not enjoying it? What was the creative team thinking, and why did anyone else think this was a good idea?
These questions arise moments into Pirates! The Penzance Musical, a revamped version of the old chestnut, The Pirates of Penzance.
Composer Arthur Sullivan and librettist W.S. Gilbert, both British, debuted their original in 1879. It was their only work to premiere in the United States since copyright laws at the time did not extend to non-citizens.
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