‘English,’ getting its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep, follows 4 very different Iranian students cramming for an English exam.
Mehry Eslaminia, left, and Christine Mirzayan star in “English,” getting its West Coast premiere at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.Learning a second language can be the key to unlocking a new world. Alas, in “English,” Sanaz Toossi’s subtle new comedy in its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, shedding your mother tongue can also bring pangs of loss, the pain of losing part of who you really are.
Toossi conjures a gentle, low-key universe as Marjan , the English teacher, greets her new students in the city of Karaj, near Tehran, in 2008. Bibiyan makes you long to understand the mysterious Marjan, who returned to Iran after a decade in England, but only seems to come to life inside her classroom.
Meanwhile the fiery Elham is wracked with anxiety. She hates English both as a language and as a symbol of the American empire, but she has to ace this test. If she doesn’t, she can’t go to medical school in Australia. The scenes are often so rich with emotional undercurrents that you don’t notice the play’s flaws, such as a romance that takes a long time to sprout but never quite blooms. Marjan’s motivations also remain unsatisfyingly schematic.
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