English – Living In Another Language – Adjustment or Change?
Karaj, Iran 2008. Five adult, Iranian students are taking an advanced English class in hopes of passing the Toefl test which opens multiple doors of possibility. Their instructor, Marjan (Marjan Neshat), spent nine years in England, where she was called Mary, before feeling compelled to return home. Her husband and family speak no English. (A sentence about how this sits would be welcome.)
Language affects meaning and the way we’re heard. It’s irrevocably bound with culture. Untranslatable words define specific concepts. In Farsi/Persian, Ta’arof means the complicated set of niceties and social rules to be observed as a form of good manners and proper etiquette. “Manners” alone doesn’t cover it.
Marjan Neshat (Marjan)
The word respect can be “izat,” a formal way to express it indicating honor, dignity, and esteem… commonly used to show respect towards elders, authority figures, or those held in high regard. Or it might be “haq,” implying recognition of someone’s rights and acknowledging their position. In English, it would seem ambiguous to a native speaker of Farsi, lacking finesse. (How To Say Guide)
Imagine how tricky this gets with emotions. One feels unable to really share. Most people initially become more reserved; observers. Fluency requires thinking in the foreign language instead of translating from your own first. Impatience is almost inevitable.
Tala Ashe (Elham)
Elham (Tala Ashe) has repeatedly failed the test. (Her peers are unaware.) Having done well on the MCATs makes her inability to learn English all the more frustrating. The young woman needs to pass in order to go to a medical school in Australia where she’s been accepted. Elham is combative. She keeps breaking into Farsi and disparages classmates to lessen obviousness of her own inadequacy. “I feel like idiot,” she whines. “AN idiot,” Marjan says gently, correcting. (Articles are a grammar issue.)
Ava Lalezarzadeh (Goli)
Eighteen year-old Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh) wants to speak like American films and songs. She finds English more direct. “It does not want to be poetry like Farsi.” Goli brings the Ricky Martin CD, “She Bangs,” to show and tell. “It’s a fender-bender,” she interprets knocking on the wall. “A bang is how the universe happens. That is how she bangs.” As a student, Goli is sensitive and enthusiastic. “I feel three inches taller speaking in English.”
Pooya Mohseni (Roya)
Roya (Pooya Mohseni) is older; proud and self contained. She was living with her neglectful son and his family in Canada but couldn’t speak the language with which he wanted his own daughter to grow up. We don’t know what brought her back to Iran, but she’s determined to return to them speaking English. Roya leaves her son phone messages like the names of the characters in the television show Friends to show she’s progressing.
Hadi Tabbal (Omid); Marjan Neshat (Marjan)
Omid (Hadi Tabbal) is the most proficient in the class, but hears himself as having an accent. He’s drawn to Marjan. She’s not immune. They watch American movies together. “Julia Roberts has enormous teeth,” he comments haltingly. Both have secrets. His will be revealed.
The students recite, participate in “show and tell,’ listen to a radio serial, converse, throw a ball requiring an English word in a given category – like things in a kitchen – with each catch, and talk about their aspirations. Because we hear both what they’re actually thinking and feeling in fluent English representing Farsi – differences in expression are clear. Marjan is even tempered and sympathetic, closer to their quandary than it appears.
Playwright Sanaz Toosi doesn’t deal with political repression except in the metaphor of freedom through language. It’s the lady or the tiger. English means a green card, a passport, mobility in a seemingly universal tongue, yet robs them of expressing their true selves. Economy in both English and Farsi is adroit. Her characters are well drawn and well played. Outcomes are diverse.
Photo by Maria Baranova
At the end of the play, there’s a pivotal conversation between Elham and Marjan in untranslated Farsi. Their having seemed at odds throughout, its nature is important. I’m told that a talk back indicated the author and director want to force audiences to be outsiders. It’s exasperating. Perhaps put it in the program?
The company is excellent; Martjan Neshat, accomplished.
Director Knud Adams shifts his small cast in the production’s two sets (the classroom and outside it) with credible variation. Morphing between awkward, accented English = English, and English fluency= Farsi, is seamless. Actors are invested even when not speaking. Silence is employed with great skill.
Marsha Ginsberg’s revolving box set design arrives almost a blank canvas, minimal yet just right. Angles (reflecting the story’s shifting points of view) are employed to good advantage. Lighting by Reza Behjat is poetic. Time of day shadows enhance while expressing immutability. Costumes (Enver Chakartash) reflect personality and situation. Sound design by Sinan Refik Zafar features classical-tinted piano music, calming otherwise volatile circumstances.
In 2022, English premiered Off Broadway and in 2023, it won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Photos by Joan Marcus
Roundabout Theatre Company presents
English by Sanaz Toosi
Directed by Knud Adams
Through March 2, 2025
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
