English – 18 January 2025

The year: 2008. The place: Iran. The premise: Four students enroll in an English language immersion course to pass their TOEFL exam as they all prepare to live in an English speaking world. The teacher: Marjan (Marjan Neshat). An Iranian woman who romanticizes her 9 years living in England before returning to Iran to teach English. The rule: no Farsi. English only.

Each character has their own reason for wanting to learn to speak English, and most have a deceptive component in how they initially present their reason. The youngest student: Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh). Passing the exam would be good for two years and open up a world of opportunity— no hidden motives disclosed. The angriest: Elham (Tala Ashe). Accepted into an Australian University for her gastrointestinal research. She has failed the TOEFL five times. The most hopeful: Roya (Pooya Mohseni). Moving to America to be part of her granddaughter’s life but annoying enough to her son that he changes his mind and decides she’s only welcome temporarily. The teacher’s pet: Omid (Hadi Tabbal). By far the star student, likely because of his secret American passport. English is actually his native tongue.

When speaking English, the actors speak with varying levels of Iranian accents, as they struggle to find the right words and there is a language barrier between them and the audience. When speaking Farsi, the actors speak American accented English at the rapid fire pace of native English speakers. Though Farsi is forbidden in the classrooms, in some moments, characters feel that they need to revert to their mother tongue to communicate effectively. The play opens on a conversation about why Goli prefers the English language to Farsi, but the journey of the story transcends the mechanics of speaking another language into the strong feelings that the characters have about who runs the world, why they have to be the ones adapting, if true abandonment of their culture is required to learn to be a part of another one, and how it feels be caught between worlds. The universality of this idea and the passage of time as characters started to develop strong feelings about what learning English meant to them on a personal level was brilliantly conveyed through the lighting design (Reza Behjat) of the production, designed to show the passage of time across a slightly shifting but mostly utilitarian set (Marsha Ginsberg).

One of the cultural differences that stood out to me the most was the firmness with which characters set and respected boundaries. It was clear that Omid and Marjan had feelings for each other, but when he was asked to leave and not return, he did so without a word. When Roya turned her back on the English speaking world and how it had changed her son into someone she did not recognize, she wanted to play a song in Farsi for the class to indicate that she was proud of who she was and where she was born. Nobody tried to convince her to come remain in the class or that it would be good to learn English either way. Her rejection of the English language was accepted. When Elham expressed that Marjan was playing favorites and not being fair to her, Marjan did not argue— she began acknowledging Elham’s success. Goli’s feelings about English expanding her world were accepted even though they were disagreed with. The characters held space for each other and were mindful that sometimes their differences meant wanting different things.

Most difficult of all, Marjan, the teacher leading the charge felt torn because, while the world outside her roots had been magical, she had been unable to stay in it. She felt like she was losing a grip on both worlds in the same way that Omid, half Iranian, half American, felt that he was never able to be whole. For Roya, the division was between how much she valued her family and how much she valued her country. For Elham, it was the world’s expectations of her conflicting with her own. For Goli, it was having a goal without having a plan.

I have been speaking of these stories as though they are separate journeys randomly united by sharing a room. In some ways, they are. Yet a quick Google search reveals that the TOEFL can be taken in over 200 countries. These particular stories are united by being Iranian in 2008. There is a specificity to the poetic nature of Farsi as a language. There was a common cultural reaction to vaguely sexual lyrics to a Ricky Martin song. There was a shared desire to help each other practice English through games involving throwing a small ball around a classroom despite everyone in the room being an adult. There was hesitance when speaking, but in almost all cases a lack of negative response to quiet grammatical corrections.

The characters had a shared bond of wanting to belong in more than once place and caring about a world beyond their country. At the time of this writing, I am not sure if I would say that Americans put in the time to truly study and understand other places the way that these characters do. I don’t know that here in America there is a desire among the populace to truly understand the geopolitical history of our relationship with Iran. It is my fervent hope that English sparks curiosity for some of the Americans in the audience regarding how it would feel to migrate to a new world and prepare yourself mentally and physically to assimilate. One of the most profound concepts in this show was the difficulty of telling a joke in another language— even when you know the words, people wonder if you understand what you said. Out of politeness, it’s hard to use foreign words to make someone laugh.

I attended this production on a press pass from Polk & Co.