Theatre in Review: English (Roundabout Theatre Company/Todd Haimes Theatre)

	Marjan Neshat. Photo: Maria Baranova

Language is a bridge and a barrier in English, Sanaz Toossi's melancholy comedy making its Broadway debut following its initial engagement at Atlantic Theater Company in 2022. It's an outlier among Pulitzer Prize winners, not being a comment on American life; instead, it offers a fascinating and entirely original reverse-angle view of a world dominated by Western power; that's no small achievement for a play that unfolds in a provincial Iranian classroom. (What follows is based on my 2022 review with some edits and emendations.)

Marjan, the kindly, sunny teacher, presides over a quartet of students learning English. Goli, a sweet-natured eighteen-year-old, is, charmingly, first seen giving a show-and-tell presentation about eyebrow liner. Elham, a spiky, argumentative medical student in her late twenties, is eager to continue her studies in Australia. Roya, in her middle years, wants to communicate with her infant grandson when she moves to Canada. Omid, the only man in the group, says he is studying for his green card examination -- although, interestingly, he is far more fluent than the others; there's a reason for that.

Toossi easily solves the technical problem of bilingual characters by exclusively employing English dialogue. When the characters are supposedly speaking in Farsi, they are in command of their words; turning to English, their speech becomes halting, awkward, and heavily accented as they struggle with tenses and fumble for the right words. This device deftly demonstrates the demands of learning a different language, especially how it hobbles one's ability to think and express oneself clearly. Constructed out of offhand exchanges and small insights, English starts quietly but hang on: Toossi patiently builds a web of conflicts and buried emotions pointing to a larger, thornier reality. All four students are prepping for the Test of English as a Foreign Language: A good grade will provide them with access abroad -- a proposition that increasingly seems to exact a troublingly high price.

Elham is amusingly self-deprecating ("My accent is a war crime") but, underneath, she is boiling with frustration, having taken the TOEFL test five times with unsatisfactory results. ("You hate this language," Marjan observes. "You put in such a fight.") Roya's distaste for her studies grows as the date of her Canada move keeps receding thanks to a son grown increasingly distant; in a surprising outburst, she forces her classmates to listen to a Farsi song, adding, with barely controlled indignation, "We should remember that we come from this. And our voluntary migration from this is something we should be grieving."

Indeed, the language class functions as a metaphor for the challenge of living in a world dominated by Western culture. It may be one thing for an English speaker to learn, say, a Romance language; it's another thing altogether for anyone to master the vocabulary and syntax of an entirely different civilization, especially one that dominates the world. In Toossi's view, language is hegemony; in learning English, her characters give away more of themselves than they intend.

Despite Marjan's constant encouragement, many of her students struggle with a language that leaves them unable to speak in a nuanced way. That they are learning English only to get ahead in the world leaves with them a bitter aftertaste; pursuing their dreams runs the risk of spiritual exile. The prospect of cultural transformation holds little appeal for some of them: Marjan notes how, during her time in the UK, she was known as "Mary." "Don't you think people can do us the courtesy of learning our names?," asks Elham, pointedly.

The characters' divisions and ambivalences are portrayed with deep sympathy and insight, along with an offhand humor that catches you when you least expect it. The director Knud Adams works wonders with an extraordinary ensemble, everyone gifted at expressing the unsaid. As Marjan, Marjan Neshat's serene manner masks many hinted-at sorrows, including a possibly troubled marriage and a years-long sojourn in Manchester, England, that ended for reasons she won't discuss. She strikes real sparks with Hadi Tabbal, engaging and enigmatic as Omid. (Note how, during a pregnant silence, their hands come so close to touching.) Tala Ashe nails Elham's natural impatience, spiked with an undertone of desperation; in an especially tense moment, she demands that Marjan apologize to her in Farsi, something the latter refuses to do. If Ava Lalezarzadeh has less to do as Goli, she is a beguilingly unaffected presence; her explication of the lyrics for Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" is a minor classic. As Roya, Pooya Mohseni has the face of a medieval martyr and a subtle, but unmistakable, way of signaling disapproval; she chills the room by calmly telling Marjan, "You talk about Farsi like it's a stench after a long day's work."

Marsha Ginsberg's set, which uses a turntable to reveal the classroom from different angles, is an ideal match with Reza Behjat's lighting, which is marked by an uncommon sensitivity to mood and time of day. Enver Chakartash's costumes feel authentic and Sinan Refik Zafar's sound design makes affecting use of lush piano music to strike an elegiac mood.

English requires a bit of patience; Toossi is painstaking about casting her spell and is not to be hurried. But the effort is well worth it; by the final fadeout, you'll likely feel intimately acquainted with these characters. And you'll have a better sense of living in a world where cultures bump up against each other so uncomfortably. Cheers to Roundabout for sharing this gem with a wider audience. --David Barbour