Even though there is much that is familiar in Call Me Izzy, Jamie Wax’s new solo play at Studio 54, its star Jean Smart gives it a unique individual life. The storyline is nothing new and reeks of Lifetime TV movie vibes (Smart has lent her detailed and dazzling talent to a few of those). A repressed housewife in a Louisiana trailer park finds solace from her dead-end life in writing. Once her poems have been published and embarrassed her brutal spouse, he beats her and forbids her from committing pen to paper. So she is reduced to hiding in the bathroom in the middle of the night and scribbling her works onto toilet paper with an eyebrow pencil. We first meet Izzy as she rhapsodizes on the shades of blue provided by her toilet bowl cleanser and she relates her tale of blighted artistic expression. She begins with an allusion to Melville’s famous start for Moby-Dick, asking the audience to call her Izzy rather than Isabel. Eager schoolgirl is succeeded by teenage bride and artistic promise is replaced with marital disappointment.

Of course, there are the requisite eccentric neighbor and sympathetic teachers to support Izzy’s dream of becoming an author as well as a philanthropic couple from New York who swoop in to the rescue. The intervention of the latter characters is a tad credulity-stretching. Izzy’s husband is a stereotypical thuggish Neanderthal, but Wax does provide some unexpected plot twists and characterizations. The playwright also supplies reasonably complex and richly-described poems for Izzy to write so it’s somewhat believable she has a gift and would be recognized by her instructors.

Fortunately, Smart endows Izzy with a galaxy of actions and objectives. What could have been a routine feel-good story of cliches is lent a degree of depth thanks to the actress’ investment in creating a full physical and emotional life as she has with her TV characters on Designing Women and Hacks. Watch as she recreates a day at the beach and transforms her observations of a group of young girls next to a pair of elderly gentlemen into a beautiful ode to time and memory. She seems to inhabit the people Izzy is writing about, evoking youthful joy and middle-aged melancholy. She’s also screamingly funny as Izzy sarcastically recounts her drab routine of housework and the contents of the bathroom which has become her sanctuary. She also gives vibrant life to Ferd, Izzy’s volcano of a husband, her kooky neighbor, and the surprisingly complex couple of literary patrons.

Sarna Lapine’s direction flows seamlessly and is varied enough to keep this one-woman show from becoming monotonous. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’ suggestive sets and Donald Holder’s soft, ephemeral lighting evoke the confided environment of Izzy’s reality and the expansive spaces of her imagination.

June 12—Aug. 17. Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., NYC. Running time: 85 mins. with no intermission. callmeizzyplay.com.