Sanaz Toossi’s English is a fascinating little play. I hasten to explain that the adjective “little” is not intended to detract from Toossi’s impact. The opposite. The five-character piece takes place in Karaj, Iran. Watching it unfold—for an American viewer at the very least—may feel like being parachuted into an entirely different culture for an expected cultural awakening.
It’s 2008 where four students and one teacher have gathered in a classroom. (Marsha Ginsberg’s set, which slowly turns every so often, is simultaneously spacious and constricting.) The subject taught is, as Toossi’s title billboards, English.
Teacher Marjan (Marjan Neshat, seen recently in Selling Kabul and just as effective here) is presiding over an advanced English class and is asking her enrollees to converse entirely in English. Not all four students are comfortable with the requirement, often lapsing into their native Farsi.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Relax, readers, relax. No need to brush up on your Farsi. Toossi specifies that for all but a short exchange in their native tongue, the characters deliver the dialogue in English but with a devilish twist. When supposedly speaking Farsi, they use unaccented English. When speaking English, they adopt accents—not necessarily identical accents, either.
Perhaps Toossi’s foremost surface point is that students Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), Roya (Pooya Mohseni), Elham (Tala Ashe), and Omid (Hadi Tabbai) are on widely different levels at absorbing their new language. Neither are they from the same backgrounds or regions, which becomes clear by the differing Iranian accents they present when expressing themselves in English.
This is where the “little” mentioned above comes in. Toossi is not interested in heavy dramatics—and director Knud Adams serves her well in that aspiration. Through the many scenes she’s written as the six-week course advances, nothing of explosive import occurs. She wants to reveal at a subdued pace who Marjan, Goli, Roya, Elham, and Omid are in themselves and in relation to each other.
Goli is the most conscientious, occasionally earning Marjan’s praise. Roya, not taking the course for the first time, is the opposite. When sparks fly fleetingly, she’s the cause. Elham has her mixed reasons for taking the course and eventually reveals them in a bitter outburst. It turns out that Omid is United States-born and has returned to Iran because it’s where he wants to live. Marjan, who has her own uncertainties, realizes Omid already has English under his belt and on his tongue.
(In some respects, Omid’s feeling torn between two countries and not at home in either echoes a theme Salman Rushdie plays on.)
It might be completely satisfying for some audience members simply to take English as an enlightening and intriguing schoolroom drama (with comic pops) about how another society and culture lives. But it’s hard not to understand almost immediately after the action begins that Toossi has metaphor on her clever mind. She’s showing a group of people involved with not only a language new to them but also involved with language itself.
And what is language? It shouldn’t be necessary to report that language is how humans communicate with one another. In other words, English concerns communication and its failures. Language is double-edged. At times it can—and does—unite or divide us. Accents indicate geographical locations, yes; but metaphorically they also suggest psychological differences.
Toossi’s implications would be admirable at any time, but it is unquestionably relevant to 2022 when politically correct attitudes are being examined to a fault. English is especially pertinent when increasingly so many of us aren’t speaking the same language, such as, for one prominent contemporary example, the language of truth in contention with the language of lies.
A final observation: Among those credited in the program are costumer Enver Chakartash, lighting designer Reza Behjat, and sound designer Sinan Refik Zafar, all doing fine work. But surprisingly there’s no dialect coach. Evidently, director Adams and cast handled that intricate challenge, as they’ve handled everything else, with full authority.
English opened February 22, 2022 at the Linda Gross Theater and runs through March 20. Tickets and information: atlantictheater.org
