This article is automatically translated from the original language to your language. Do not hesitate to let us know if it contains translation errors so that we can correct them as soon as possible.
Finally, analyze the text that Shakira “Whenever, Anywhere” deserves. As a character in a play by Sanaz Toossi English thinking as the song plays, Andes “The longest mountain in the world. Many died in the Andes. But Shakira would climb the Andes to count the freckles on her body. This man probably has lots of freckles. We do not know.”
Few of the gems stand out – it’s the pieces that pop, shimmer and captivate the audience so much that you feel absolutely delightful, creating a two-way explosion in the room as the performance goes on. The actors and the speech address the audience, and the audience, enveloped and absolute in the space created by the company, does the same.
Englishopening tonight at Atlantic Theater Company (until March 22) in a co-production with the Roundabout Theater Company, is one such gem. This reviewer’s advice is pretty simple. Book tickets – a finely written, beautifully performed work lasting one hour and forty-five minutes in the theater awaits you.
Englishdirected by Knud Adams, is a comedy about five Iranians learning English in a classroom in Karaj, Iran in 2008, and a film about five conflicting personalities – interrogating how the concepts of language, identity and homeland are cross. Is learning English an important way to broaden the world and its horizons, or is it a descent, a cover-up, a nod to Western cultural hegemony, or even a trap?
On the whiteboard in the English class, the fortieth teacher Marjan (Marjan Neshat) wrote the title of the course: “TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language Reading Writing Listening Speaking”, underlines the instruction manual. for any discussion in class: “English only”. Marsha Ginsberg’s design is a rotating square that contains the rotating classroom so we can view it from different angles, as well as a basic outdoor porch. Reza Behjat’s lighting is also simple and effective, somehow conveying the fiery heat of midday and the soft golden glow of the end of the day.
Toossi, winner of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award and the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Prize, has created a very specific small group of students.
Elham (Tala Ashe, the best spike variety), in his late twenties, wants to specialize in gastroenterology in Australia. This is her fifth attempt at such a course, and she wants to pass it on to become a teaching assistant to earn money on her trip out of the country. However, Elham was not only tired of the failed attempts, but wondered what the purpose of the class was.
Roya (Pooya Mohseni), in his fifties, has a son who lives in Canada with a Western woman; Roya wants to be fluent in English so she can talk to her grandson.
The handsome and languid Omid (Hadi Tabbal) is the only man in his class and the one whose command of English far exceeds his classmates. He and Marjan have always been supportive and equally deeply drawn to each other, an attraction partly rooted in their experience of enjoying speaking English and somehow communicating between the two worlds, and words and experiences appear in them. Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh) is just 18 and someone who doesn’t seem burdened with all the big questions and cultural annoyances class brings to others. She just wants to learn and loves doing it.
For a game with language at its center, English works in some smart language records. Sometimes he positions his humor or seriousness in the space between the words the students are using and the exact English they are trying to master. Everyone except Omid’s English is on hiatus; but when they burst into Farsi – where Marjan kept the forbidden checklist on the whiteboard – the actors conveyed their ease and relief at becoming fluent, speaking American as fast as possible.
Classes consist of fixed conversations about their lives, the game in which a ball is tossed from character to character as they find words that refer to things that are green, or clothes, or things you find in the classroom. They listened to audio tapes of Americans discussing basketball games and marriage plans, then were asked questions to test their understanding. The word “W” is read again: “Welcome Wendy! When we cry! ”
In the first demo, Goli brought an eyebrow pencil “because eyebrows are really important, and if you don’t have a mirror”. Seeing a Julia Roberts shoot with Marjan, Omid notes in a magical voice how big her teeth are. “They can rip power cords. In the right direction. Marjan, the queen of double-meaning, says, “Sometimes understanding Hugh Grant takes two,” then – in the best line of the play – gets up to turn off the DVD player as Grant and Roberts are left lovingly happy at the end of the movie Notting Hill.
“It’s good for them,” Marjan said. She doesn’t say it curtly, or who plays it to make it sound funny. She said it so consistently that you won’t realize until later that we the audience, with our unexpected bursts of laughter, helped create the moment. It’s not true, but it’s not meant to be mocked explicitly.
“Our mother bears our name. Not strangers.
–
– Roya in “English”
– –
When Marjan asks why we learn a language, the answers vary from need (for food) to emotional expression. Elham said the way they spoke in that particular class was ‘unnatural’ and immediately asked Omid why he was there as he was already so fluent. Elham says it doesn’t matter what class you take or don’t learn; The western world will judge their remaining Iranian accent as funny, stupid and worse.
Marjan, who lived in the UK, in the northern English city of Manchester, for nine years, tried to defuse hostilities by saying: “English cannot be conquered. Grab it. You can also be anything you are in Farsi in English. I always prefer to be better at English. But, she admits, for those nine years she was called “Mary”, not her real name, although she said she liked it. “Marjan is not hard to say,” Elham said. “Our mother was named for us. Not strangers,” Roya said.
Marjan persisted, sensing the frustration of students inviting “a foreign language into your body”, but she demanded that in this class “we are not Iranian”. She wants them to “drop” their Iranian personalities in class.
It is not easy. We see Roya trying to call her son and stumbling not just over the words, but also the distance – geographic and emotional – that those stumbling words have become known. It was too much for her to ask Marjan why she treated Farsi as “a stench after a long day’s work”. She refused to perform at a show and said she was challenged to bring traditional Iranian music into the classroom. “It’s my song,” she said, sitting up in her chair.
Elham’s desire for an overarching story led to the unification of the Persian Empire. Instead of being asked to speak American, “we will all speak Farsi”. They can agree on that, but Roya also says that personally Elham is so obnoxious that in an English context she would have “no merit”. That may be true, but Ashe deftly makes all of Elham’s jagged edges – and there are many of them – completely understandable. Indeed, we cheer her when she finally beat Omid in the game “Things You Find In The Kitchen”.
There are various twists and turns as the play comes to its conclusion, not in frenetic development, but in the quiet, forced spirit of the play itself as it continues to question the relationships of language. language, identity and place. It does not come to definitive or doctrinal conclusions.
“You are Iranian but your English has a lot of things. He wanted to be American and sometimes British and now he doesn’t know what that is.
–
– Elham in “English”
– –
Instead, it offers a series of compelling ideas that show aspects of each character. Marjan felt that English and Farsi were at war in her head. Omid thinks belonging anywhere is a “miracle”. Why does Marjan love everything, including himself, in English, Omid wondered – thwarting the class’s perception that his English was perfect. He knew very well not. “My English is – you can hear the space between not from here, not from there. I believe I live there: in this void.”
Marjan’s years in Manchester, trying to master English, made her “always very vocal.” As if all the worst parts of your voice were filtered out by the microphone. Your head hurts and the day seems longer. You go years without making anyone laugh. ”
The final discussion between Marjan and Elham was also about language, not insult or sniper. “Nobody hates this language more than I hate it,” Elham said of English. “I love my mother tongue.”
“You are Iranian but your English is many things,” Elham told Marjan. “He wanted to be American and sometimes British and now he doesn’t know what he is. When I speak English, I know that I will always be a foreigner.
Everything is said in English may be true about language, identity and learning: the joy of Goli, the fading joy and cultural confusion of Marjan and Omid, and the bond of distrust and resentment of Elham and Roya. At the end, again immaculate here, a final act crystallizes the play’s most penetrating linguistic moment – and the predominantly English-speaking audience is left where it should be.
–
https://www.thedailybeast.com/english-is-one-of-the-best-plays-in-new-york-right-now?source=articles&via=rss ‘English’ is one of the best plays in New York right now
This article is automatically translated from the original language to your language. Do not hesitate to let us know if it contains translation errors so that we can correct them as soon as possible.
