Set in the Iranian city of Karaj in 2008, Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer-winning English follows four students with varying degrees of proficiency in the eponymous language and how they interact with their teacher as well as one another. Structured as several episodes that play off the characters’ shifting dynamics, English has moments of ringing insight but is hampered by the very constraints it’s made for itself inside the four walls of an English as a Foreign Language classroom. 

 

The students range from idealistic 18-year-old Goli; 28-year-old Elham, frustrated at already failing the test; 29-year-old Omid, surprisingly fluent already; and 54-year-old Roya, desperate to learn English so she can converse with her American grandchildren. Marjan, their 40ish teacher, spent nine years living in the U.K. after learning American English at home. 

 

Toossi throws this quintet together for a clever 90-minute sitcom with humor stemming from basic misunderstandings as well as malapropisms of tentative speakers. The play shrewdly works in two languages and cultures side by side, as the actors speak both Farsi and English, but with a twist: when they converse in their native language, they speak perfect, unaccented English; when they speak English, it’s with various accents. The terrific cast of five expertly masters the linguistic back and forth so that, even early on, it’s easy to follow what language they’re supposed to be speaking. 

 

But even more impressive is how the entire cast—Tala Ashe (Elham), Ava Lalezarzadeh (Goli), Pooya Mohseni (Roya), Marjan Neshat (Marjan) and Hadi Tabbal (Omid)—meshes with remarkable skill and humanity. Knud Adams directs resourcefully for the most part, although the choppiness stemming from English’s episodic nature—putting a drag on its dramatic momentum—isn’t completely solved. 

 

Finally, there’s the issue of some of the blocking: there are several chairs strewn about Marsha Ginsberg’s revolving classroom set that block some audience members’ view (including mine) of the actors at times. Perhaps it worked better on the small Atlantic Theater stage, where English debuted in 2022.