Sanaz Toossi's play 'English' delves into the relationship between language, identity, and cultural transformation. Set in Iran in 2008, the narrative highlights the nuanced feelings surrounding mastery of English versus Farsi. Characters grapple with the essence of the languages they speak, contemplating whether fluency in English represents empowerment or oppression. With its lightness yet profound themes, the play captures the challenges of navigating cultural identity amid societal upheavals. The acclaimed production, which recently moved to Broadway, reflects on the current socio-political climate, drawing parallels to ongoing issues of bigotry and inequality.
"Whether this ability to transform-both to mutate itself and to promise transformation and, thereby, opportunity to its speaker-is a gift of the English language or a reminder of its use as a tool of empire-building and cultural oppression is the uneasy question at the heart of Toossi's delicately wrought play."
"English does not want to be poetry like Farsi," says this young woman, named Goli (Ava Lalezarzadeh), searching for the words to explain. "It is like some rice. English is the rice. You take some rice and you make the rice whatever you want."
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