English: language and names matter
22 Feb 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Sometimes I think you can only speak one language. You can know two, but you can only speak one.

In English you forget where you come from.

Four Iranian students are learning to speak and write English under the tutelage of the enthusiastic but strict Marjan (Ghazal Partou). From this microcosm of personalities English delivers an overview of the migrant, and aspiring migrant, experience. And a masterclass in how important language is in shaping our view of our place in the world. Each of the students has a different aspiration motivating them. Elham (Ghazal Azarbad) needs to pass her test and become fluent in order to become a teaching assistant in Australia. Roya (Banafsheh Taherian) needs to be fluent to join her son and granddaughter in Canada. Omid (Sepehr Reybod) already speaks English smoothly and his motivations are murkier, appearing to have something to do with his attraction to Marjan. Goli (Aylin Oyan Salahshoor) laments that "no-one listens to me in Farsi" but, when she speaks English "I'm three or four inches taller."

 
The students give presentations, practice conversations, play games, watch rom-coms, and struggle to stick to Marjan's edict, spelled out in big letters on the blackboard, of "English Only." The play by Sanaz Toossi utilizes the simple device of having the dialogue in English being accented, while when the characters speak in Farsi, their English is, to English-speaking ears, accent free. It is not only a conceptual workaround to avoid subtitles, it is a metaphor that pays off beautifully in the final moments. As Elham notes, an accent is often equated with being an idiot. Elham is willful and competitive, she wants to learn English for her own advancement (and because she likes to win), but she also fantasizes of a world where the British were not the world conquerors. A world where they were forced to learn Farsi in order to get ahead. This naturally leads to conflict with Marjan who remembers her years spent in England as the best years of her life. 

Marjan had no problem changing her name to 'Mary,' adjusting her identity, but names matter as much as accents. Roya, who is struggling in the class, suffers a terrible revelation that also centers around a name. Just how much must one give up to become a citizen of another country? Of another culture? It is different for all five, but frighteningly similar. All of these tensions and turmoil bubble under a brightly comic surface, a specialty of co-directors Anahita Dehbonehie (Hand of God) and Guillermo Verdecchia (The Royale, Animal Farm, Flashing Lights, A Line in the Sand, The Art of Building a Bunker). At first the mangled phrasing, malapropisms and effusive charades illustrating words, are played for laughs. Goli in particular is charming in her frustrated enthusiasm. But as English gets deeper, and we come to care for the characters, we feel the barrier they are battering against. The comedy becomes character-driven, richly bittersweet, and we share the successes and failures with a startling intensity.   

Once again in recent theatre-going, English made me acutely aware of my privilege. As someone raised in the English language, only attempting to learn smatterings of French and Spanish for travel (also an exorbitant privilege), my concerns with language have been the nuances and struggles to use it effectively. The awareness that English is a diabolically idiosyncratic language was, is, an afterthought. I can afford the time to fine tune because I was born into the basics. A luxury a migrant doesn't necessarily have. Also, unspoken until a powerful epilogue catapulting English from 2009 to today, is the harsh imbalance that is driving these characters to learn English. To leave Iran for a different world. To trade in their heritage, their ability to "speak our souls," for another life that is simply assumed to be better. Toossi does address that imbalance through a character who makes an unexpected choice that sets off a dramatic chain reaction. And through an uproarious line referencing the terrifying spectacle and rapacious chomping power of Julia Roberts' teeth.