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| Hadi Tabbal and Marjan Neshat (Photo: Joan Marcus) |
Learning a second language is more than an academic exercise for the characters in English, Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of 2023. Now receiving its Broadway premiere courtesy of the Roundabout Theatre Company, it's a wonderfully intimate, thought-provoking drama that delves into the impact of language on the soul.
Set in an immersive English-language class in Iran in 2008, the play focuses on four students and one instructor, for whom speaking English can be liberating but can also mean leaving behind a part of themselves and their culture. Elham (Tala Ashe) needs to pass the TOEFL test in order to teach and study in Australia. Roya (Pooya Mohseni) wants to be able to talk to her granddaughter, who is being raised in Canada. Omid (Hadi Tabbal), who's rather proficient with English, and Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), the youngest of the bunch, are hoping to get U.S. visas. Overseeing the course is Marjan (Marjan Neshat), a middle-aged woman who lived in England for several years and has a fondness for English-language rom-coms.
Throughout the semester the five struggle not only with how to speak the language but who they become when they do. Elham, clearly an overachiever in her studies, wrestles with her new language and challenges Marjan's demand that they don't speak Farsi in the classroom. (When characters do talk in their native language, they speak in unaccented English; the rest of the time their English has an accent attached.) Roya, the oldest of the bunch, can't cope with who she and her son become when they converse in English.
Toossi has created a rich, diverse array of characters and, under the direction of Knud Adams, the cast brings them to life with beautiful delicacy. This 100-minute production, which originated at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2022, has transferred with its cast and creative team intact. One problem if you're sitting off to the sides: Marsha Ginsberg's revolving cubical classroom may not always offer the best vantage points at all times.
Even so, English is that all-too-rare play that has something fresh to say, and says it in a language all its own.
