Loosing your cultural identity in a Classroom in Iran
The Pulitzer prize winning play English, a co-production of Artswest and Seda-Iranian Theatre Ensemble, opened this weekend. The action takes place in 2008 in an English language classroom in Iran where four very different students are preparing for the all-important TOEFL prior to emigrating to English speaking countries. Author Sanaz Toossi, uses the students attitudes towards learning English as a vehicle to explore issues of ethnic identity and loss.
TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is the world’s most trusted standardized test of English ability recognized by 11,000 Universities in 190 countries, with several different levels. Gaining a passing grade, at a high level, is necessary for obtaining a student visa and admission to university. There were high stakes in the classroom in the play.
The four students, had different reasons for emigrating from Iran, which were representative of the reasons for emigration for the population as a whole. However, the teacher had returned to Iran after a lengthy stay abroad. One extremely feisty female student Elham (Shereen Khatibloo), wants to go abroad to study medicine, and fights speaking English in class. Any discussion of why she chose to study abroad was lacking in the script. Equally lacking in the script was any hint or discussion that she may be fearful of discussing her reasons for fear of being turned in to the authorities by a potential spy.
Another student, Roya (Janet Hayatshahi) a middle-aged woman, with a son in Canada, is learning English, because her son is overly committed to assimilation and only wants her to come to Canada if she speaks English. There was no discussion about the possibility that she might speak French, as many educated Iranians of that generation do, and that Canada is a bi-lingual country.
An enigmatic male student Omid (Emon Elboudwarej) speaks perfectly good English, but has a secret about the status of his visa. Just to lighten things up, Goli (Newsha Farahani) the nice girl in the class, does not have a particularly good reason to take the TOEFL, she just thinks it might be a good idea to have it under her belt. I suspected it was an insurance plan so that she could more easily emigrate if the political situation got unbearable, as it did in the fall of 2022.
And then there was the extraordinarily perplexing teacher, Marjan (Vahisthta Vafadari) who never reveals why she returned to the Islamic Republic of Iran after nine years in Manchester, in the U.K. Granted, it is cold in the North of England and the ugliness of the red-brick architecture is oppressive, but one would have to have compelling reasons to exchange the freedoms of the U.K. for Iran. The audience is left hanging.
All the conflicts expressed in the classroom seemed fairly trivial compared to the conflicts outside the classroom for this group of mostly female students and especially for the male student, who is hiding a big secret, which could get him into big trouble with the anti-Western authorities.
The exposition took about 45 minutes, where the author just kept presenting scene after scene of instruction, before any conflict or drama arose. Lacking any real plot, the small amount of drama was a few interpersonal conflicts between students and the teacher and the students, but nothing substantial.
In terms of directing, the lay-out of the Artswest stage and the set worked against the play. It was a ¾ in the round lay-out with a lot of chairs at the back of the stage. As a result if one were sitting on the sides, the actor’ backs were towards the audience a lot. Even sitting in the center, I saw the actors’ backs more than I wanted to.
The set by Parmida Ziaei, visually expressed the appropriate amount of confusion; classroom chairs distributed in a chaotic fashion at the back of the stage, but it prevented that part of the stage from being utilized, which would have allowed the audience to see and hear the actors more.
One clever device by the director Naghmeh Samini was to have the actors speaking with heavy Iranian accent, when they were speaking English and then when they were supposed to be speaking Farsi (Persian) they spoke in unaccented English. Mostly, this was effective and a way to avoid subtitles. However, the accents were too strong, splashy and often incomprehensible. It would have been better to sacrifice authenticity for clarity.
Having promoted Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble’s previous play The Forgotten History of Mastaneh (in Farsi with subtitles) which was a serious dramatic plot-driven riveting play, about significant issues relevant to every woman, I was disappointed by English.
However, there was a full-house, although the audience seemed subdued, there were a few laughs. My companion for the evening said he liked the play better than I did, but thought that such a mediocre play did not deserve a standing ovation. Seda and Artswest have done some great work in the past, let’s hope they choose better scripts next time.
English. A co-production of Seda Theatre Ensemble and Artswest. Artswest. 4111- California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98116 Thurs-Sat. 7:30, Sun 3 pm. Til April 28 (Sunday’s matinée are after the West Seattle Farmer’s Market on California Ave, in front of the Theatre)
Tickets https://www.artswest.org/events/english/
Free Street Parking after 6 pm, Free on Sunday