By Lucy Komisar
The women have head scarves and speak Farsi in “English” by Sanaz Toossi, an Iranian-American who won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama with this play.
Set in 2008, the characters are taking a class in Iran to perfect their English to go to America for various reasons: study, get a job, see family. It might seem prosaic, but the heart of this story is about language as identity. As one says, it’s to speak to our souls.
It is directed with sensitivity by Knud Adams, who grew up in France, England and Scotland, then moved to the U.S. where he went to high school.
Cleverly, when the characters speak Farsi, they talk in perfect idiomatic English. When they “speak English,” their accents are pronounced.
The prosaic details are not very interesting. It’s hard to get a visa. The instructor Marjan (Marjan Neshat) went to England because she was taken with actor Hugh Grant. But he wasn’t there!
It’s a bit of a pastiche, sometimes charming, sometimes I thought boring. I told my companion, a French theater writer and director, that it seemed European, nothing really happening in the way things happen in American films, but just a collection of feelings and moods. She liked it, then again, she is French!
Except of course you see some changes that include Roya (Pooya Mohseni) an older woman’s discovery her son in America doesn’t really want her to come to stay, Elham (Tala Ashe) a student’s dogged and finally successful attempt at English good enough to pass an exam, another Omid (Hadi Tabbai) who speaks terrifically and then is unmasked as born in the USA! And appealing young Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh) who likes pop music and would fit into America perfectly. The acting is all quite fine.
So, the action is changes in the characters, not really anything between the characters. There’s a suggestion of an attraction between the teacher and Omid, but that doesn’t go anywhere and I thought it was forced.
The most pointed revelation is of language as identity, something I’d never heard before. What happens when English continues on its road to becoming the world’s international language? English is now the language in many of the world’s university graduate schools and global businesses. On another level the call center workers in the Philippines are benefitting from language learned during decades of U.S. imperial domination! A world-wide phenomenon. It adds to the importance of the issue raised by Toossi’s play.
“English.” Written by Sanaz Toossi. Directed by Knud Adams. Roundabout Theatre Company at Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, NYC. 1hr40min. Opened Jan 23, 2025, closes March 2, 2025. Review on NY Theatre Wire.