PITTSFIELD — “Why do we learn language?” a fluent English-speaking Iranian teacher named Marjan asks at the opening of Sanaz Toossi’s 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “English.”
“To bring the inside to the outside,” replies one of Marjan’s students in her Test of English as a Foreign Language class.
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“Yes,” Marjan responds. “To speak not only our needs but our wants. To speak our souls. To speak … and to listen. To the insides of others.”
The silence of Marjan’s own inner voice is key to “English,” especially as she is played by a luminous Nazanin Nour in Barrington Stage Company’s production of Toossi’s insightful, delicately crafted play.
“English” is set in 2008 in a classroom in a school in Karaj, Iran, a suburb of Tehran roughly 20 miles west of the capital city. As designed by Afsoon Pajoufar, it is a wide-windowed room dominated by a large table comprising modular units that can be — and are — reconfigured. There is a TV and VCR at one side of the room; on the other side, a whiteboard on which is written “Test of English as a Foreign Language.” “English Only,” Marjan adds in big neat writing shortly after she has entered the classroom.
Marjan moves with poise and confidence and a muted Western stylishness. She is wearing a dark tunic jacket over a pair of jeans and ankle high heeled boots. Her hijab pulled as far back on her head as she can without it falling off and completely revealing her long raven hair. It is a visual testament to a woman who only recently has returned to her native country after having lived nine years in Manchester, England, where she was referred to by many as Mary.
Arts and Theater
Barrington Stage was looking for the right actor to play Elham in 'English.' Then 2023 Pulitzer-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi auditioned for the role
- By Aaron Simon Gross, The Berkshire Eagle
5 min to read
Marjan is caught between two worlds and two languages — English, which she speaks and teaches as if it were her native language; and Farsi to which she finds herself returning with an ease and facility which both concerns and faintly attracts her. Teaching this class is a way of holding on to her anglicization. She also spends “downtime” in her office watching England-set films — “Notting Hill,” “Room With a View,” among them; something she begins sharing with a remarkably advanced student, Omid (superbly played by Babak Tafti), who is taking the class to prepare, he says, for a green card interview.
Marjan’s aching sense of loneliness, yearning, isolation is, in Nour’s hands, palpable in the mist subtle and nuanced of ways. Hers is an untold story. Among Toossi’s admirable skills as a playwright is her ability to say much in very little. Less definitely is more.
“English” unfolds over the class’ six week course and an epilogue set one month after the play’s main events. In addition to Omid, Marjan’s students include Goli (a perky Narges Kalogli), an 18-year-old poised between girlhood and womanhood who is taking the class simply because she’s been in love with the language since childhood; Roya (an affecting Pooya Mohseni), a resentful 50-something woman who is struggling to learn English so she can go to Canada to be with her assimilating son and especially her granddaughter); and Elham (played with spunky, fiery determination and challenge by Toossi), who has failed to pass the exam five previous times in her effort to go to medical school in Australia.
Toossi’s clever conceit in “English” is to have her characters speak in both accented and unaccented English. In the world of the play, the fluid unaccented English represents conversations in Farsi.
There is a lot to unpack in “English,” particularly backstories which Toossi leaves for audiences to fill in with a little suggestive help from her; possibilities.
Toossi skillfully navigates issues that deal with cultural identity, personal identity, the value of names; language; how we speak; how we are heard and understood; accents; what it means to maintain pride in one’s cultural heritage and birthright in a world in which other cultural values — language — hold sway.
Toossi, the California-born daughter of Iranian immigrants, and her director Knud Adams — who directed the play’s co-production world premiere between Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company in New York and again at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. — have the keen understanding to allow these characters to find their respective voices; speak for themselves often with a silence that speaks volumes. A lot more than English is spoken here.
THEATER REVIEW
What: “English” by Sanaz Toossi. Directed by Knud Adams
With: Nazanin Nour, Narges Kalogli, Sanaz Toossi, Pooya Mohseni, Babak Tafti
Who: Barrington Stage Company
Where: Boyd-Quinson Stage, 30 Union St., Pittsfield
When: Through Oct. 15
Performances: 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets: $25–$65
Information and reservations: 413-236-8888; barringtonstageco.org
