Set in Iran, Sanaz Toossi’s ‘English’ Is More a Study of the Power of Language Than of Geopolitics

With independent-minded Iranian women facing ever greater challenges, and dangers, Toossi is to be credited for giving them voices that are graceful and awkward, funny and fierce.

Joan Marcus
Ava Lalezarzadeh in 'English.' Joan Marcus

The first thing one is likely to notice about the four women introduced in Sanaz Toossi’s “English,” now making its Broadway debut, is their accents. Ms. Toossi’s play, set inside a classroom at the Iranian city of Karaj in 2008, is performed almost entirely in its titular language, but the actors speak unaccented English only when their characters are meant to be communicating in Farsi, their native tongue.

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