The company of English. (Photo: Joan Marcus)

English

By Julia Polinsky

What and how you speak: this is who you are.

That is the idea behind Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English, now at the Roundabout. A co-production with the Atlantic Theater Company, English is set a classroom in Iran, where students are preparing for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

English presents four students who need to pass this exam: Elham (Tala Ashe), Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), Roya (Pooya Mohseni), Omid (Hadi Tabbal), and their teacher, Marjan (Marjan Neshat), who lived in England for 9 years but has returned to Iran and now teaches ESL.

Why learn this difficult language? Elham wants to go to medical school in Australia and must pass the TOEFL to do so. Roya's son in Canada insists that she speak only English to his daughter, her only granddaughter. Roya plans and hopes to move in with the family, yet her son speaks of "visits" and even with her limited English, Roya knows that "visit" is not "live with." Goli, the youngest, knows English will help her in the future. Omid - well, Omid is a mystery. He already has considerable skill with the language; the other students call him out on it, as he wins word games over and over.

Those word games, such as tossing a ball while naming items of clothing or things found in a kitchen, for example, or Show and Tell, showcase the frustration and difficulty of learning another language. Each student must use "English Only" as Marjan has written on the whiteboard, yet it's almost impossible to do. Of course, the actors speak English on the stage, so it's important to have clarity about when they're "speaking Farsi" and when not. The playwright and director have their characters speak rapidly and fluently when they're supposed to be speaking Farsi, but with slow, stilted, awkward, accented speech when they're "speaking English." The stakes for these students are greater than we can imagine. How we sound to others: that's who they think we are. If we sound like buffoons - like Borat - we will not be taken seriously.

Some people are not inclined to laugh at grammar mistakes or pronunciation errors. The audience at the Roundabout was more than happy to, however, which is probably part of the point: accents, mistakes, and awkwardness with language stand in the way of understanding. Elham speaks of her accent as a war crime. In Goli's charming Show and Tell in English, she demonstrates how to use an eyebrow pencil: "Pencil for eyebrow. I want big eyebrow," is English; "I want to show everyone how to fill in their brows" is Farsi.

Pooya Mohseni (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Toossi also uses songs to give us a picture of the interior workings of her students' minds. The poetic, young Goli, who says that "English does not want to be poetry like Farsi," presents a hot and heavy Ricky Martin pop song called "She Bangs," and gives a lovely, sweet, poetic interpretation of the lyrics. In contrast, Roya plays a song in Farsi; the teacher objects, but Roya knows this is her truth. She fears she will lose herself as she makes herself speak English. This is her song, she says, plays the music, and leaves the class, never to return.

The prickly Elham is equally aware of what she loses when she speaks English. She hates the language, hates being forced to learn it. She loses being Iranian, she thinks. But she has the most to gain from passing the TOEFL, which she has already taken several times. Omid, in his conversations with the teacher after class, as they watch romcoms in English, asks her why she came back to Iran after 9 years in England. She avoids a clear answer, and it is not until he reveals his own motivations for taking the class that they understand each other.

 

Hadi Tabbal; Marjan Neshat (Photo: Joan Marcus)

The cast members, most of them Iranian-Americans, return to the roles they played at the Atlantic Theater, where English debuted in 2022. They give uniformly excellent performances, under the direction of Knud Adams. In Marsha Ginsberg's scenic design, the classroom has the typical whiteboard, student desks, huge window, and teacher's table, all encapsulated in rotating cube within the large, dark stage at the Todd Haimes theater - a visible reference to the way language boxes us in. Costumes by Enver Chakartash are excellent; lighting from Reza Behjat works beautifully.

At the end of English, which takes place after the TOEFL, Marjan and Elham have a conversation in Farsi - in real Farsi, not Farsi-as-English. That conversation reveals how comfortable the characters are when speaking their real language to someone who understands them fully. It also gives the audience a small, uncomfortable sample of what it's like to be unable to understand the people around you.

English

At the Todd Haimes Theatre

227 W. 42nd St

Through March 2

Tickets: https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2024-2025/english/performances