It’s axiomatic among teachers of foreign languages that total immersion is best. For generations, classrooms around the world have temporarily banned the native tongue of students in favor of an insistence not just on the constant expression of that which is being taught but on its cultural context. To learn, the theory goes, means the elimination of that which is most natural and a dive into the sea of a culture not the student’s own.
At what cost?
That’s the central question in “English,” an impassioned, deconstructive drama by Sanaz Toossi that won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2023 and now has arrived at the Goodman Theatre, before traveling on to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis later this summer. This shared production, the work of the Iranian director Hamid Dehghani (a former Northwestern University graduate student) and featuring a mostly New York-based cast of Iranian-American actors, is richly performed, beautifully staged and generally every bit as good as the play itself.
We’re in Karaj, a city of around 2 million people in central Iran. The ticket out, should one desire, is via a good score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, test, a requirement for many U.S. and British graduate programs abroad, not to mention visas and other opportunities. So students have gathered in the classroom of Marjan (Roxanna Hope Radja), a woman who went abroad but came back, to improve their English and, during class time at least, refrain from speaking Farsi.
The play never leaves the classroom. It says little to nothing about what actually is transpiring in Iran, or why women especially might be so anxious to leave, since it’s aimed at deconstructing any notion of English being desirable as some kind of universal global language. That’s merely accepting the hegemonic, the play vociferously argues.
The authorial view here is that Iranian nationals speaking English are condemning themselves to a kind of limbo: “Your English doesn’t know what it is,” we hear from one annoyed student, going after her teacher’s blend of U.S. and British English, a consequence of many classes in many different places. Farsi, the play suggests, is central to a rich sense of the Iranian self, wherever that self may travel.
This argument, ubiquitous in the progressive non-profit American theater, is probably not something you would have heard much from the generation of Iranian-Americans older than this playwright. I find the idea of young Iranians with dreams of a U.S. future being told their accent will render them as forever strangers in a strange land, unable to make anyone laugh, rather a depressing commentary on the world, although I also have to acknowledge that I am a native English speaker, so that no doubt colors that perception. I do know, however, that the immigrant experience, even the temporary immigrant experience, is inestimably complex and yet more so when it comes to raising children born somewhere else, even those that go on to write fine plays like “English.”
There is a longing undergirding this play for a free and non-theocratic Iran, even if it mostly remains subtextual as the playwright focuses on the English language as a vehicle for cultural erasure — which is an easier way to get your play up at grant-funded places like the Goodman and the Guthrie. The generation older would appreciate that palpable longing. As do I.
Whatever your view on the cultural politics, this is a brilliant piece of writing, dramaturgically rich, poetic and humorous, clearly based in lived experience and sufficiently nuanced to impress even relativists like me who are interested in the old liberal counterpoint. The acting here is formidable, especially from Nikki Massoud as Elham, the competitive and frustrated student who most challenges the teacher and thus most expresses the authorial point of view. Her colleague Omid (Pej Vahdat) is not all he seems, Roya (Sahar Bibiyan) is consumed by practical considerations and Gola (Shadee Vossoughi) retains the optimism of youth and is attracted to the ubiquity of English within the pop culture she most admires. Massoud knows how to bide her time as her character’s frustration builds. “You talk about Farsi,” she says to her shell-shocked teacher, “as if it were a stench.”
I was frankly knocked out by the quality of the direction, which is exquisitely paced, subtle of idea and formidably communicative. Overall, this cast makes its numbers feel larger and at no point do you feel like you are hearing a false note. It’s truly a fine ensemble exploring the work of a gifted writer who knows how to draw huge cultural import, on a global scale, from ordinary people doing their best in near-impossible circumstances.
Unlike many plays with similar settings, “English” has the hum of quiet desperation, the way we all get on with our lives even when we regret past decisions or crave systemic change. I believed we were in a classroom in Karaj at every moment and that everyone here felt what they felt, be they rebels or pragmatists and whether or not their beliefs are realistic (whose really are?)
One last thing: “English” has one brilliant theatrical device, as simple as it is transformative. When speaking English, the students use accented words, as Iranian language students would. When they speak Farsi, they revert to perfect American English, which makes about three different points at once.
And in the end? Well, go see.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “English” (4 stars)
When: Through June 16
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Tickets: $20-$55 at 312-443-3800 and goodmantheatre.org
