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English

In Sanaz Toossi's poignant Pulitzer Prize-winning play, students at an English language school in Iran grapple with far more difficult impending tests than the TOEFL.  

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Marjan Neshat as Marjan  the teacher in a scene from the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Sanaz Toossi’s “English” at the Todd Haimes Theatre (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Language is both a blessing and a curse in Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning English, a Broadway transfer whose gracefulness remains remarkably intact on a now much larger stage. Possessing a purgatorial quality, Marsha Ginsberg’s cubic set rotates with the play’s scene changes while surrounded by a constant and foreboding darkness that suggests anything but a heavenly outcome, though this unsettling visual is aurally softened through soothing interstitial music from sound designer Sinan Refik Zafar. Inside the spinning box, sometimes warmly lit by Reza Behjat in defiance of the shadows, it’s 2008, and four native Farsi-speaking students from the sizeable Iranian city of Karaj are preparing for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), under the guidance of a sunny, if pedagogically steadfast, instructor, Marjan (Marjan Neshat), in the hope of giving themselves the opportunity to leave home for places, which, in all likelihood, will never feel that way.

With the exception of 18-year-old Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), a budding adventuress chock full of the optimism solely gifted to youth, the classmates anticipate the nightmarish costs of their dreams. Those psychic tolls include not only enduring the knee-jerk prejudices aroused from communicating with an accent but, as Goli perceptively observes, losing yourself in translation to a new language made for utility rather than poetry. There is also the hegemonic expectation of having to live in English to reach one’s full potential, a Faustian bargain the Type-A Elham (Tala Ashe), an aspiring physician who’s already secured solid MCAT scores, struggles to accept, as evidenced by her multiple unsuccessful attempts at passing the TOEFL. She wistfully wonders what the world might be like for Iranians today if the Persian king Cyrus the Great had continued to expand his empire, a dual criticism of where she’s headed and, more subtly, where she is.

Tala Ashe (Elham), Hadi Tabbal (Omid), Ava Lalezarzadeh (Goli), Marjan Neshat (Marjan) and Pooya Mohseni (Roya) in a scene from the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Sanaz Toossi’s “English” at the Todd Haimes Theatre (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

While Elham reluctantly seeks a professional future in Australia–bitterly expecting that objective to require an Anglicized name–Roya (Pooya Mohseni), the oldest student by at least a couple of decades, has a painfully loving reason for wanting to learn English: it’s a precondition for meeting her Canadian grandchild, imposed not by any government but, instead, her own son who is apparently raising his daughter without a cultural past. When Elham callously informs Roya why her cell phone calls instantaneously go to her son’s voicemail, Roya heartbreakingly recognizes she is a part of that past, despite the educational effort she’s making and the borders she’s willing to cross.

The most puzzling student is Omid (Hadi Tabbal), who, besides easily adhering to Marjan’s firm “English-only” rule for classroom chats, also draws Elham’s competitive, annoyed, and suspicious attention for being able to converse in English almost on a par with Marjan. It’s a linguistic bond between teacher and pupil that leads to Marjan inviting Omid to watch drippy Hollywood romantic comedies during her office hours, which raises the possibility of life imitating bad art or, as Elham indelicately puts it to Goli, the married Marjan has “the most obvious boner” for Omid. That’s not an unfair interpretation of what’s going on, but the more reflective description of Omid and Marjan’s relationship is that, in fact, they are trapped in a romantic tragedy together, decorously avoiding each other’s arms while being mentally connected by the profound sadness of their shared liminality. In both of their cases, an unrelenting sense of social separation includes soul-churning secrets, with Omid eventually revealing his own, while Marjan’s achingly buried thoughts–seemingly related to an unexplained return to Iran after residing for nine years in Manchester, England–stay a fraught mystery.

Tala Ashe (Elham) and Marjan Neshat (Marjan) in a scene from the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Sanaz Toossi’s “English” at the Todd Haimes Theatre (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

But Toossi’s English isn’t all spoken and unspoken sorrow. While the playwright never strays too far from seriousness, Toossi does find opportunities for laughs, mostly through the effervescent Goli. The biggest ones come during a show-and-tell, when Goli pulls out a boombox to subject everyone to Ricky Martin’s hit song “She Bangs,” which she soon follows with an uproariously close reading of its lyrics.

Although Goli’s exuberance for the straightforward simplicity of American pop music cleverly leavens the play with humor, the true genius of Toossi’s script is that the characters speak Farsi without speaking Farsi. When their English is fluent and unaccented, the audience quickly recognizes that the characters are using their native language. When it’s not, we understand that the characters are talking to one another in their best attempts at English. It’s a brilliant dramatic choice that juxtaposes the beauty of confident and complex expression to its opposite while also letting the audience, in lieu of insipidly staring up at supertitles, discern how much each character is sacrificing of their nuanced selves to a different language they may or may not want to actually master.

Hadi Tabbal (Omid) and Marjan Neshat (Marjan) in a scene from the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Sanaz Toossi’s “English” at the Todd Haimes Theatre (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Credit for this theatrical accomplishment should also go to director Knud Adams and his delicately guided cast of Broadway newcomers. Because of these sensitive acting talents, it’s difficult not to fret about the fates of their characters long after Elham, Goli, Roya, Marjan, and Omid have left the stage. With empathy in short supply these days, English is a welcome reminder of what it feels like.

English (through March 2, 2025)

The Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company

Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-719-1300 or visit http://www.roundabouttheatre.org

Running time: one hour and 40 minutes without an intermission

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