I can empathize. As someone who takes four classes a week in four different foreign languages — it had been my way of getting through the pandemic — the subject of Sanaz Toossi’s new play not only struck a nerve, it hit my pocket book. Aptly titled “English,” Toossi’s one-act play opened Thursday at Roundabout’s Todd Haimes Theatre after a run in 2022 at Off Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company. In between those two productions, Toosi’s play won the Pulitzer Prize. It is one of the slightest works ever to receive that award.
As with some of the students in Toossi’s classroom drama, I have no talent for learning foreign languages despite all the courses taken, all the money spent. I know the fear, the awkwardness, that constant feeling of stupidity. Watching “English,” I also felt the tedium of sitting in a classroom — or Zoom class — while people struggle desperately to express themselves in a foreign language. Yes, the tedium. My classes tend to be 90 minutes. Toossi’s play is only slightly longer.
Set in Iran in 2008, the four students here (Tala Ashe, Ava Lalezarzadeh, Pooya Mohseni and Hadi Tabbal) and their teacher (Marjan Neshat) speak fluent American English when they’re supposed to be speaking Farsi, and a very accented broken English when they’re supposed to be speaking English. In other words, we in the audience can always understand what they’re saying except when the accents get a little too thick or the English gets really mangled, which is when Toossi reveals her dated sense of humor. Anyone who watched Ricky Ricardo “’splain” himself on “I Love Lucy” has heard these kinds of malapropism jokes before.
My takeaway from “English” is definitely not the message of identity and pride that Toossi has in mind. For me, the teacher Marjan (Neshat exudes extreme patience throughout) is trying hard to teach disrespectful students who don’t really want to learn. For example, when the teacher insists they speak English, a couple of the students believe she is infringing on their Arab identity and insist on speaking their native tongue so they can really “express” themselves. One student gets so incensed she plays a Farsi song in class.
For me, this is the moment I would demand my tuition back. We’re learning German, so let’s listen to Lady Gaga?
Another such tuition-refund moment comes when the students perform a language exercise and throw a small green ball at each other. When they catch it, they have to speak an English word on a given topic, such as “kitchen” or “sports.” The exercise adds action to a drama that desperately needs it, but this exercise is trauma-inducing for anyone trying to verbalize a foreign word.
But back to those recalcitrant students: They shame Marjan for having let people in England, where she lived for nine years, call her Mary. That’s a lesson learned. This week, I must remember to tell my Italian instructor to stop calling me Robertino.
Of course, there’s a difference between foreign language as a hobby and foreign language as destiny and survival. These Iranian students’ future depends on passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The anxiety and fear of failure permeates the actors’ performances, and there’s something else they’re even better at communicating: resentment. “English” was conceived as Toossi’s MFA thesis, and running around the edges of her play is the inherent patriarchy of formal education. Toossi tweaks that indictment by having the teacher be female, but the subjugation of the students by an illiberal force propagating Western culture remains. They study a Ricky Martin song, watch the movie “Moonstruck” and, of course, drink Coca-Cola. That’s cultural tyranny.
The other choice is chaos — let the students run the classroom and no one learns. “English” explores the tyranny, but fudges the chaos. Left unexplained is how one incompetent student eventually aces her TOEFL. Also weakly explained is why another student, proficient in English, takes this class.
Under Knud Adams’ direction, Neshat is wise to play against the authoritarian instincts of her character. Ashe and Mohseni, unfortunately, play right into their respective character’s self-righteousness with regard to so-called students’ rights. Such entitled behavior has led to many in the United States leaving the teaching profession. It’s doubtful it has ever been tolerated in Iran, especially in 2008.
“English” is written in short snippets of scenes, and Toossi emphasizes this choppiness by concluding many of these five-minute skits with an overly pithy remark. Adams brings some connective tissue to the play by providing musical interludes as Marsha Ginsberg’s classroom set spins around to offer us a variety of viewpoints. The only thing missing is the drama.
In one respect, “English” fits perfectly into the dramatic works the Pulitzer committee likes to promote. It tells us that Western culture is bad, everything else is just great.
