THEATRE
Written by Sanaz Toossi, by Melbourne Theatre Company
At Sumner, Southbank Theatre until 29 August 2024
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***1/2
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 3 August 2024. KH
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| Osamah Sami, Delaram Ahmadi, Maia Abbas and Marjan Mesbahi_ENGLISH_Pia Johnson |
English, a play by Iranian-American writer, Sanaz Toossi, won its writer the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. It is not a grand play that deals with explosive, highly dramatic or political issues that one might expect from a play set in Iran and written by a woman who lives in the US. Rather, it is an intimate, delicate and sensitive exploration of language, identity, relationship to country and communication.
Each character has his or her own reasons for studying, and a particular relationship to the English language and to their own culture.
Marjan lived eight years in Manchester but returned to Iran where she feels lost in the cracks between the two cultures and languages.
Elham (Maia Abbas) is stroppy and ambitious but hates English and the way it makes her feel and sound stupid when she aims to study gastro-enterology at RMIT. Her direct opposite is 18-year-old Goli (Delaram Ahmadi), who is cheerful, optimistic, eager and quick to learn as she has her whole life ahead of her. Failure is not even in her vocabulary.
Roya (Marjan Mesbahi) needs to learn English so she can move to Canada to live with her son and grandchild, but she cannot grasp the language, clings to her roots and believes one’s name is sacred and should not be changed in another language. “Our mothers name us, not others.”
Omid (Osamah Sami) is a totally different creature from the others. His English is advanced, and he seems to have no reason to attend the classes. His secret will out!
Toossi creates a gentle, warm atmosphere that allows us entry into the minds, behaviour and needs of these five people. The play, directed by Tasnim Hossein, is a series of very short scenes that represent the passing of weeks in class. By the second half, this episodic structure and the regular blackouts becomes a little tiresome. It could merge some scenes.
I recall my own experience studying Italian by total immersion in the language. I was accustomed to being the expert in the room being the teacher, not the novice student. I was unable to tell a joke or make people laugh, I saw people’s eyes glaze over as I struggled to form sentences. I felt like an idiot. It was necessary to accept this new, temporary identity until I mastered the language sufficiently to make a joke successfully and string a coherent sentence into a conversation that enthralled. It was tough.
Language does provide one an identity. Farsi is a poetic and expressive language, and we hear its lyrical sound at the end of this delicate portrayal of Iranian people seeking to preserve their identity and culture while exploring new versions of themselves through another language.
By Kate Herbert
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| Full Cast_MTC_ENGLISH_image Pia Johnston |
Elham
Maia Abbas
Goli Delaram Ahmadi
Marjan Salme Geransar
Roya Marjan Mesbahi
Omid Osamah Sami
CREATIVE TEAM
Director
Tasnim Hossain
Set & Costume Designer Kat Chan
Lighting Designer Paul Lim
Composer Hamed Sadeghi
Sound Designer Marco Cher-Gibard
Persian Language Accent / Dialect Coach Ana Bayat
Voice & Text Coach Mark Wong
Assistant Director Afsaneh Torabi
Assistant Lighting Designer Giovanna Yate Gonzalez
Voice
in recorded English lesson & Voice of Nader Ali Samaei
Consultant – Persian Culture Dr. Afshin Forghani
Voice in recorded English lesson Effie Nkrumah
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