‘English’: Pursuing the Persian expat dream

‘ENGLISH’: (left to right): Pooya Mohseni, Hadi Tabbal, Marjan Neshat, Tala Ashe & Ava Lalezarzadeh. Photo: Joan Marcus.

ENGLISH
By Sanaz Toossi
Directed by Knud Adams
Through March 2, 2025
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2024-2025/english

By Scott Harrah

Four Iranian students struggle to learn English as a foreign language while pursuing dreams of life abroad in the provocative comedy-drama English by Sanaz Toossi (winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama).  Set in a language school in Karaj, Iran in 2008, English focuses on the stories of each student as well as their teacher Marjan (Marjan Neshat), an upbeat woman who spent nine years in Manchester, England before returning to the Middle East. Ongoing themes about the struggle to learn a new language, cultural identity and communication issues run throughout the 90-minute play.

The English teacher

Marjan is a passionate anglophile and demands that everyone speak English only in her class. No Farsi is allowed at any time. Anyone familiar with advanced foreign-language classes knows this type of “immersion,” as it is called, is standard. However, while English contains lots of comedic moments about the difficulty learning and speaking English, Sanaz Toossi’s tale is also about the different reasons why the students are studying a foreign language. Many have dreams of leaving Iran to pursue better lives abroad.

The students

Elham (Tala Ashe) is hoping to attend medical school in Melbourne, Australia to become a gastroenterologist and medical researcher, but she needs a near-perfect score on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Although she’s highly proficient in math and science, Elham is having trouble mastering English. She tells the class in earnest , “My accent is a war crime.”

Omid (Hadi Tabbal) is the only male student and his English skills are so exceptional that everyone wonders why he is in the class. He likes to visit Marjan during office hours so the two can watch videotapes American and British romantic comedies to purportedly get a better grasp of English. Regardless, it is obvious he fancies her and the two are flirtatious together.

Roya (Pooya Mohseni) is a middle-aged woman who needs to learn English so she can spend time with her son and daughter-in-law in Canada. She specifically needs to be fluent in English because her Canadian granddaughter doesn’t speak Farsi. Her character is one of the most heartbreaking in the show when we learn the truth about her family overseas.

Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh) is an 18-year-old woman who just wants to learn English and speak it without a Persian accent to give her more career opportunities.  Because she is so young, Goli learns the language fast and has fewer difficulties than the older students.

Word games & ‘show & tell’

The story shows the students participating in word games, such as throwing around a ball and naming every item in a kitchen using the proper English word. Students are also expected to do a “show and tell” presentation in many classes, and there are some genuinely funny moments. In particular, Goli plays the silly Ricky Martin pop song “She Bangs” and analyzes the 2000 hit like it’s a Shakespearean soliloquy. However, Goli points out that “English doesn’t want to be poetry like Farsi.”

The universality of the play is perhaps the best aspect of playwright Sanaz Toossi’s story. This could be set in any non-English-speaking nation where people aspire to leave their homeland for a better life. Many dramas set in the Middle East focus on politics and religion, but the play avoids these controversial topics and instead explores the human conflicts that arise when a foreign language, culture, tradition and ambition all collide.

All that’s missing from Ms. Toossi’s otherwise superb script is more depth to the characters. Many scenes outside the classroom, when characters discuss their issues with learning English as well as their personal problems in life, add nuance and some explanation about each student’s backstory. However, in this one-act play, there are a few holes in the exposition. For example, we know the teacher Marjan spent nearly a decade in Manchester, but why she returned to Iran is never fully explained.

Outstanding performances

Director Knud Adams extracts outstanding performances from the five-person ensemble. Marjan Neshat, as teacher Marjan, is lively and somber and portrays the woman as both positive and nurturing while being complex and mysterious behind her cheerful façade.

Ava Lalezarzadeh as young Goli is wonderfully bubbly, while Hadi Tabbal is great as the enigmatic Omid.

Tala Ashe is remarkable as the troubled but gifted future doctor Elham. Ms. Ashe displays all the multiple layers to Elham with amazing skill and precision, showing the woman to be smart and self-assured but also vulnerable when she discusses taking the TOEFL exam.

Pooya Mohseni gives one of the show’s best performances as Roya, a woman torn between her love of her country and native tongue. She wants to learn English so she can reunite with her son and form a relationship with her English-speaking granddaughter in Canada. Ms. Mohseni displays a wide range of emotions with ease and aplomb, and the audience really feels all the pain Roya is experiencing.

Marsha Ginsberg’s simplistic but innovative set design, complete with Farsi words on a sign, Enver Chakartash’s authentic Iranian costumes, along with Reza Behjat’s wonderful lighting and equally effective sound design by Sinan Refik Zafar really make audiences feel like we are watching a class in the suburbs of Tehran.

Sanaz Toossi’s play examines the complexities of yearning to travel outside one’s home country for a better life. Just learning a foreign language is not the only obstacle people face when planning to travel abroad to work, study or reunite with family. English is a provocative evening of theater, showing how language and cultural barriers create many setbacks with sobering consequences.

Published January 29, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on January 28, 2025

‘ENGLISH’: Hadi Tabbal & Marjan Neshat. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘ENGLISH’: Ava Lalezarzadeh. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘ENGLISH’: Tala Ashe & Marjan Neshat. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘ENGLISH’: Hadi Tabbal. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘ENGLISH’: Tala Ashe. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘ENGLISH’: Pooya Mohseni. Photo: Joan Marcus.