"English" at the Todd Haimes Theatre is a play that you will either like or not like. As a Broadway transfer, this 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama gives its message very subtly. In Sanaz Toossi's play, you get the plot, not straight away, but in the words undertones.
In a course that is over six weeks and in 21 scenes, four Farsi speaking adults are trying to prepare for the Toefl test (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Here we see the comedic side of the play... one does not say "the Canada" for instance.
The play's underlying themes are based on how each character feels about losing their native tongue; the language of their land regardless of Iran's imperfections. As the play delves deeper into the plot, we see how each person feels about speaking English, and why they are bothering to learn it.
Goli, (Ava Lalezarzadeh) has no ambition to learn English. She wants to enjoy the practicality and cultural currency of the language. She feels that English does not have the poetry of Farsi has.
Elham (Tala Ashe) has the most difficult time with English even though she needs it the most. To get to medical school in Australia, it is required that she achieves a passable Toefl score. Roya (Pooya Mphseni) wants to master the language so she can get to Canada to live with her neglectful son in Canada. Omid (Hadi Tabbal) is most fluent in English, but his inner ear knows the truth about his accent when speaking the language. The most complicated of the five actors in Marjan (Marjan Neshat). The teacher has returned to Iran after nine years in England. She has a love for the Anglos and their language. Her relationship to English is more of a push-pull relationship.
Thankfully the politics in the play are more than glancingly suggested. Toossi, however, has written a trap of a plot on the conflict between the repression in Iran and the uncertainty of a bad liberation with an untrustworthy government.
In Knud Adams direction, he creates more drama than depth. The characters have stayed problems, but no big crisis in the play. We get painful realizations about each one, but never heavy burdening ones. Even the love between teacher and student never boils to the top. Adam's staging says a lot underneath, it never comes to the surface and belts anything out loud. The only thing that constantly moves is the rotating box of a stage (set by Marsha Ginsberg). The set offers changing dynamics; changing attitudes about the show and the actors. The lighting (Reza Behjat) has the shifting angles of the sun and shadows, a moving work showing the time and mood of the piece. The sound and the costumes too are always changing; always moving to reflect the movement, the attitudes of the actors.
The play has a problem ginning up an ending. The play goes on for an extra 10 minutes trying to bring the play to conclusion. Notwithstanding, the play and its subtleties is worth the viewing.
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Robert Massimi.
CEO., Gimme Shelter Productions,LLC
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