“Why do we learn languages?” a teacher asks her students in “English,” a 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a group of Persian-speaking adults in Iran who learn the language of the title.
“It’s about bringing the inside to the outside,” says the student.
“Yes,” the teacher declares. “To speak about our souls… and listen. To the inner world of others.”
Perhaps the same can be said about why people write, produce, and watch theater, a medium entirely mediated by language.
In “English,” currently playing at the Goodman Theatre, playwright Sanaz Tussi explores what’s going on inside the play’s characters, even if much of the dialogue masks their favorite colors on the surface. They have created a sublime play that throughout makes us feel very attuned to what is happening. Or working on making a list of things you’re likely to find in your kitchen as a way to expand your vocabulary.
Each character comes to this class for different reasons. For Elham (Nikki Massoud), a good score on his TOEFL test, which measures English proficiency, means he can get into medical school in Australia. Loya (Sahar Bibiyan) wants to be able to communicate with her grandchildren in Canada. Omid (Paige Vahadat), the only man among the students who speaks the highest level of English, is preparing for his green card interview in Dubai. And for the youngest student, Gori (Shady Vossogi), it simply means better opportunities, yet to be defined.
But among these stories are those in which Tussi and this wonderful cast carefully unveil a series of scenes that all seem to be of perfect length and no more, spanning the entire approximately 100-minute play. The same can be said. No breaks. Competitiveness and self-doubt may surface. The characters can be kind to each other one moment and mean to another the next, all while grappling with the relentless and often comical frustrations of learning a new language.
Toosi has identified the ideal theatrical device to address our own language barriers, but one that also accomplishes something deeper. When the characters speak Farsi (which they do, with some frequency, despite Ms. Marjane’s (Roxana Hope Raja) orders for only English in class), they speak perfect English and speak faster. , speak fluently. However, when they speak English, they speak with an accent, sometimes with a much heavier accent than others, and depending on their skill level.
Though subdued in tone, there are rich thematic layers to ‘English’ that are completely engrossing and deeply moving. Learning another language can have political, economic, and even religious contexts. But Tussi focuses overwhelmingly on the personal: language as a means of examining and perhaps reconstructing identity. The characters here not only have relationships with each other, but also with the English and Persian versions of themselves that you hear when they speak.
Shadi Vossoghi (from left), Paige Vahadat, Nikki Massoud and Roxana Hope-Raja appear in “English” at the Goodman Theatre.
That’s perhaps more true of Teacher Marjan than anyone else. Marjan loves the English language and, in Raja’s captivating performance, speaks it fluently with a British accent, having lived in the UK for nine years. Her passion for the language also raises questions she herself is hesitant to answer: if she loves the English language and all it stands for so much, why did she come back? And, more complicated to say the least, Thusi also deals with the self-esteem that learning a foreign language unearths, as well as the question of what happens when you start to lose a language you thought you had mastered.
The play is set in a classroom in Iran, but set designer Courtney O’Neill cleverly reveals the outside scene when the curtains are open. On one side we can see the city itself, and on the other side we can see the interiors of the second and third floors of apartment buildings, just enough to give us a sense of city life, the reality that lies beyond the walls, both hard and soft in nature. good.
A similar sensitivity and attention to detail pervades Goodman’s film, directed by Hamid Deghani, himself an Iranian immigrant. It’s clear that he has the deepest understanding of these characters and their aspirations, and the same goes for Toosi, the daughter of Iranian immigrants. Set aside the expectations that almost every other play set in the Middle East creates. The film explicitly avoids explicit commentary on Iranian society, preferring to let the characters’ very presence in this classroom carefully and deliberately tell us what we need to know. According to costume designer Shahrzad Mazaheri, the clothes they wear allow us to evoke details of their individual personalities.
Deghani, his design team, and this incredible cast make every moment of the production dramatically active, sharp, clear, stunningly realistic, and overall relatable. The play contains surprising developments, humor, and an extraordinary depth of human insight.
You can feel the inner feelings of the characters coming out.
