ENGLISH


You don’t have to have made a lifetime career out of teaching English to speakers of other languages as I have to be blown away by the Broadway production of Sanaz Toossi’s extraordinary Pulitzer Prize-winning play English, now paying a must-see visit to The Wallis in Beverly Hills.

It seems like forever since 40something language instructor Marjan (Marjan Neshat) called Manchester, England home, but the seven years she spent there changed her life to such an extent that she’s been attempting to recreate the magic of being “Mary” and speaking English on a daily basis since her return to Karaj, Iran, 44 miles northeast of Tehran.

Unfortunately, about the only way Marjan can even come close to doing that is by re-watching movies on VHS (Notting Hill tops her list of faves) and teaching English to students who see mastering the language as a key to their futures.

28-year-old Elham (Tala Ashe), for example, needs to score at least 94 out of 120 on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign) to pursue an advanced degree in gastroenterology in Australia, and though she’s already passed the MCAT, her five failed attempts at the TOEFL are reflected in an English speaking level that’s elementary at best.

Without English, 50something Roya (Pooya Mohseni) will be unable to communicate with her Canadian-born granddaughter when she emigrates there, her son Najid (who much to Roya’s dismay now calls himself Nate) having insisted that Claire (a name his mother struggles to pronounce) grow up in an English-only home.

30ish Omid’s (Babak Tafti) ability to speak fluent, nearly unaccented English has his fellow students wondering why he’s even taking Marjam’s class, but with his green card interview coming up in less than a month, a refresher course may be just what Omid needs to bolster his confidence.

 Indeed, the only class member studying English simply for the joy of learning a new language and as a way of embracing a global future is 18-year-old eager beaver Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh).

Over the course of Marjam’s 6-week course (and English’s lickety-split 100-minute running time) we follow her and her students as they strive to improve their listening/speaking skills while attempting, often unsuccessfully, to observe Marjan’s “English Only” rule.

And the more we get to know them, the more invested we become in their lives and the more we come to understand what it means to learn a second language. (If you’ve ever judged a non-native speaker’s intelligence by their English-speaking ability, you’ll think twice about doing so again.)

Does speaking a second language mean expanding one’s sense of self (as was the case with Marjan when she lived in England) or losing one’s identity (which is how Elham feels whenever she hears herself speak like a toddler instead of an educated adult)?

 This is just one of the topics that Orange County native Toosi tackles in this most remarkable of plays, and by having us hear Farsi as unaccented American English whenever her characters break Marjan’s cardinal rule, she allow us to hear what her characters sound like to each other when given the freedom to be their full selves.

My own decades-long teaching career and my ability to speak several foreign languages may put me in a unique position when discussing English, but you don’t have to be in my shoes to fall in love with Toossi’s characters, to ache for them, to root for them, or to understand them.

Not only that, but Tony nominee Knud Adams’ incisive, perceptive direction has elicited magnificent performances from four of the play’s original Atlantic Theater Company off-Broadway and Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway cast and noteworthy newcomer Tofti. (Like the play’s Tony-nominated writer, Ashe and Neshat also received much deserved Tony noms.)

I love the way Marsh Ginsberg’s Tony-nominated set revolves from scene to scene to give us new perspectives on Marjan’s classroom (and its exterior as well) as each week passes while Enver Chakartash’s spot-on costumes, Reza Behjat’s vibrant lighting, sound designer Sinan Refik Zafar’s gorgeous musical underscoring, and Ruey Horng Sun’s effective projections make English come even more alive on the Bram Goldsmith Theater stage.

Ludmila de Brito is assistant director. Michael Bennett Lewis is associate set designer, Colleen Doherty is associate lighting designer, and Nal Nicholas is associate projection designer.

Tara Grammy, Beejan Land, and Pantea Ommi are understudies.

Sarah Sahin is production stage manager and Lexie Kahanovitz is assistant stage manager.

I worry that Sanaz Toossi’s remarkable play will be ignored by those most in need of a reminder that American bombs are falling on people like Marjan, Elham, Roya, Omid, and Goli.

Hopefully I’m mistaken, because now, more than ever, English needs to be seen.

Bram Goldsmith Theater, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills.
www.thewallis.org

–Steven Stanley
April 9, 2026
Photos: Kevin Parry

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

 

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