CALL ME IZZY Reviews

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 8:41pm

First review thread of the 2025-26 Broadway season. 

Let’s do this!

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 10:11pm

Another late review embargo? Guess it's the new standard. Adam Feldman usually says when they'll drop but nothing yet.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:13pm

Green in NYT raves about Smart, little else

Review: Jean Smart, Gritty and Poetic in ‘Call Me Izzy’

 

The “Hacks” star returns to Broadway after 25 years in a triumph for her, if not for the old-fashioned, flowery play about spouse abuse.

https://archive.ph/trfQS
 

Updated On: 6/12/25 at 11:13 PM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:21pm

I’d say that’s spot on. Go for her. That’s legit the only reason. 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:22pm

USA Today

'Call Me Izzy' review: Jean Smart transcends a middling Broadway play

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/06/12/call-me-izzy-review-jean-smart/84099288007/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:24pm

Variety

'Call Me Izzy’ Review: Jean Smart Dazzles in a Broadway Play That Treads All-Too-Familiar Territory

https://variety.com/2025/legit/reviews/call-me-izzy-review-jean-smart-broadway-1236428572/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:25pm

Vulture

https://www.vulture.com/article/jean-smart-call-me-izzy-theater-review.html

"Jean Smart, heading back to Broadway after a career revival on television, has plenty of talent. The trouble is she’s stuck in a production that has little idea what to do with it, other than subject her character to grim and unenlightening suffering."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:26pm

The Guardian

Call Me Izzy review – Jean Smart is better than her one-woman show

Studio 54, New York

 

The Hacks star is magnetic but the show, where she plays a woman finding herself late in life, can’t match her

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/jun/12/call-me-izzy-review-jean-smart-broadway

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:28pm

Deadline.com

Jean Smart Welcomes In The New Broadway Season With The Remarkable ‘Call Me Izzy’ – Review

https://deadline.com/2025/06/jean-smart-call-me-izzy-broadway-review-1236427982/

 

[1 Minute Critic]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:29pm

Jean Smart trades stand-up for stanzas in Call Me Izzy. — As veteran comedian Deborah Vance, Jean Smart has spent the last three seasons of the hit TV show Hacks ensconced in a luxurious Las Vegas estate. This summer, she trades the desert’s dry heat and LA’s misogyny for the swampy oppression of an abusive husband in a Louisiana trailer park circa 1989. But Hello Izzy’s 1989 time stamp and its harrowing circumstances never quite meet the caliber of its star performer.  Full review here.
 

 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 6/12/25 at 11:51pm

DTLI Consensus: In her long-awaited return to Broadway, a resplendent Jean Smart more than elevates the occasionally muddled play she is given. 

7 positive (including the NYT), 4 mixed, 3 negative.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/call-me-izzy/

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 2:56am

Saw the show tonight and WOOF this might be one of the most depressing plays I have seen on Broadway. What is being sold as a comedy about a woman writing poetry is just a unrelentingly dark 80 minutes of unending disturbing domestic violence that doesn't quiet know what it is trying to say.

The fact this show has no content warning is also very odd, Jean Smart is the reason to see this and even then you really have to wonder why after 25 years this is the thing she said yes to coming back to Broadway, I found myself looking at my watch repeatedly counting down the minutes after each scene. 

also that bathroom, just awful and distracting. 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 8:34am

A broader topic: to me, most of these 7 "positives" are niche raves for the star with such major reservations about the piece's flaws, the categorization seems disingenuous. We all learn to accept the trade-off in many star vehicles: sometimes the machine isn't so well-oiled, yet the driver sails forward at 80 mph on the synthesis of talent, craft, charisma. This play feels like something from another era, an earnest story with a social conscience and great topicality wrapped up in the television defining tropes of regionalism and folksy truth-speakin'. One wonders if the summer audiences will be so enamored of experiencing the star in the flesh that the play she must enliven with focus and bearing will feel worth it. Open question. I can see the ads and pull quotes that rave about Smart and eliminate the serious critique of the text she must put over. Of course, that's hardly a new marketing challenge. 

Updated On: 6/13/25 at 08:34 AM

[Huss417]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 10:53am

I'd like to go see this just because it's Jean Smart but haven't been able to find a promo code anywhere and prices seem a little steep.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 11:02am

I saw this the other day and enjoyed it more than others (especially my friend with me who DETESTED it) but I do think it comes down to seeing Jean Smart onstage again after a quarter century of her being away. The script isn’t the best but it does allow for some fantastic acting from one of my childhood favorites and at the end of the day, I guess that was enough for me. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 11:19am

Huss417 said: "I'd like to go see this just because it's Jean Smart but haven't been able to find a promo code anywhere and prices seem a little steep."

I very easily got a TodayTix rush seat. 

[Huss417]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 11:34am

RippedMan said: "Huss417 said: "I'd like to go see this just because it's Jean Smart but haven't been able to find a promo code anywhere and prices seem a little steep."

I very easily got a TodayTix rush seat."

Thanks. I'll probably go down that route.

[sppunk]

Posted: 6/13/25 at 10:13pm

Cancelled tonight due to illness. I have tickets for tomorrow but am assuming that’ll be cancelled too so planning alternatives (too bad MHE and Procter are both sold out already!). 

Covid is low-key running rampant. That new variant seems like a weed. 

Updated On: 6/13/25 at 10:13 PM

[sppunk]

Posted: 6/14/25 at 11:55pm

So this did go on today. And I wish it didn’t. 
 

I hated this show. Smart is great of course but why on earth is the vehicle she used to come back? The writing is imo quite terrible. It felt like a very long 85 minutes. And there were lots of empty seats. 

Updated On: 6/15/25 at 11:55 PM

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 6/15/25 at 12:10am

It is sad this is going to crash and burn its way to the finish

again, why this show?

[Bwaygurl2]

Posted: 6/15/25 at 12:25am

BoringBoredBoard40 said: "It is sad this is going to crash and burn its way to the finish

again, why this show?"

Smart said she felt she had to play this part.

[bwayobsessed]

Posted: 6/15/25 at 9:28am

I saw it last week and really liked it. It took a bit for me to get into it but once it got me I was in.