Theater Review by Stuart Miller…
Expanding your horizons is a worthy goal, a way to live a fulfilling life. But sometimes you can lose sight of yourself and feel your identity getting stifled in the process—especially if those horizons lead to a new land and necessitate the learning of a new language.
That is the heart of Sanaz Toossi’s poignant yet funny play, “English.” The show is set in Iran in 2008 in a class for people looking to pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language. There are four students and a teacher and while there are some intriguing interpersonal dynamics, the play’s conflict is really this idea of reconciling a sense of self in your beloved mother tongue with what mastering an alien language may yield.


The two most potent stories of the students belong to Roya and Elham. Roya (Pooya Mohseni) wants to go live with her son and her new granddaughter in Canada but is being pressured by her son who has fully assimilated and would only allow his daughter to have a grandma who can speak this new language. Elham (Tala Ashe) loathes and resents English as she grows increasingly desperate to pass this test she has repeatedly failed so she can move to Australia and begin medical school.
Of the others, Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), is young enough at 18 to more easily absorb a new language and seems to enjoy learning English for its own sake; when she even brings the Ricky Martin song “She Bangs” to class for a presentation, you’re reminded of the stranglehold our popular culture has on the rest of the world. She is often there to provide comic relief or rays of sunshine amidst the others (sometimes self-imposed) woes.


Meanwhile, Omid (Hadi Tabbal) doesn’t seem to need the class at all. His English is nearly flawless—when he uses the word “windbreaker” during a language game his classmates are puzzled and incredulous—but he has his own reasons. Quickly, his main reason seems to be a developing relationship with his married teacher Marjan (Marjan Neshat).
Marjan learned English and then lived in England for nine years, long enough to feel that thrill that comes when a new language becomes comfortable and lived in. Now that she’s back, those feelings are slipping away and her sense of identity is starting to crack anew, making her vulnerable to Omid’s fluent flirtations.
The cast, all of whom are imported from the off-Broadway production at the Atlantic, is impeccable, each inhabiting these characters naturally, with Ashe and Neshat as the standouts. Their relationship is the cause of the most friction in the play, the few jolts in what is otherwise a quiet look at these characters’ worlds.
The lack of external action is not necessarily a flaw, although in this play it can feel like one because of Knud Adams’ direction. When the play ran off-Broadway, one criticism was the pacing—the set rotates between each scene, accompanied by classical music and every time it happens, the world onstage grinds to a halt. For a play without real narrative momentum that can dislodge audiences’ attention and one would think that Adams would have shed much of that for the new production. Not only is still there, but in this less intimate setting, it feels more disruptive, although perhaps cutting the play down to eighty minutes, while better dramatically, would have made it too slight for Broadway.
(Another issue is that in certain scenes the rotation stops with the classroom positioned at an angle that means a piece of a wall blocks one character for much of the audience. This is especially irksome in two-character scenes.)
Still, the scenes themselves are beautifully depicted and full of life. The play is largely devoid of politics—the oppression and limited opportunities in Iran, especially for women, is only hinted at and the state of enmity between Iran and America, the dominant English-speaking force is not part of the equation. (Elham may have loathed learning Chinese or Russian just as much.)
Still, it’s inescapable in the audience, knowing that we live in a land of immigrants with a racist president set on demonizing them for his millions of supporters. In that light, watching these women grapple with what English can offer them and what reinventing themselves might cost takes on an added power that elevates the play.
“English” runs through March 2nd at the Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street. It is 1 hour 40 minutes without intermission.
Photo credits: Joan Marcus