In the age of Duolingo, fluency is marketed as something that can be achieved online, with ten minutes of study a day, in a matter of months. But in “English,” running at Indiana Repertory Theatre through April 4, learning a new language doesn’t involve collecting “gems” or maintaining a streak.
The play’s setting is an English-only classroom in Karaj, Iran, where adult learners struggle to connect with a new language and each other.
If you go
English
🗓️ Now through April 4
📍 Indiana Repertory Theatre, 140 E. Washington St.
🎟️ Tickets start at $27
In this production, directed by Azar Kazemi, we find ourselves face to face with four Farsi speakers. Elham, Roya, Goli and Omid are preparing for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Marjan is their teacher. The activities in this classroom include fun stuff like word games and show-and-tell sessions, but the stakes are high.
Fluency in English, after all, could lead to a lucrative career or to a different future.
While their teacher is competent enough, rivalries and jealousies sometimes get in the way of her lesson plans. Elham (Natasha Behnam), who aspires to attend medical school in Australia, expends a lot of energy accusing Omid (Revon Yousif) of being the teacher’s pet — energy that might be better spent memorizing verb charts. But Omid’s motivations — his proficiency in English seems suspiciously high — comes into question as the play moves forward.
‘Feeling connected to people you’re at war with is really hard.’
After the play, some of the cast members sat down for a panel discussion.
Yousif made clear he can relate to Omid because of his Middle Eastern background. “I was born in Detroit, but my first language was Aramaic since both my parents are Chaldean immigrants from Iraq,” he said.
Yousif learned English at school but spoke Aramaic at home. America has never quite felt like home to him. But Iraq didn’t feel like home either, since he has never been there.
“I’ve always felt like I lived in this middle space,” he said, “not being from here and not being from there. I remember this feeling intensifying when the war on Iraq started in 2003 and Middle Eastern people really began to be ostracized in America.”
The panel of actors did not ignore the fact that there was an active war being fought between Iran and the United States even as they were speaking.
“It feels very meaningful to tell the story now, and to exhibit for the world what humans in Iran can look like and looks like,” said Neagheen Homaifar, who plays Marjan. “And to make sure everyone walks away being like ‘That’s a human being that I relate to.’”
Homaifar, who is Iranian American, told the audience that the people they saw on stage were basically the same people they were seeing on the news.
“We’re all people that just want to belong,” she said. “We just want to be understood, no matter what country we’re in, and so I just hope that that is what people take away, is that they feel … more connected. Because feeling connected to people you’re at war with is really hard. It makes everything so much more complex.”
Natasha Behnam, who plays Elham, feels drawn to the complexity of her character, and the experience of spending a lot of time with her.
“I think what’s really interesting is living in the same person and the same story over and over and over again, from eight hours a day in rehearsal into shows every night,” said Behnam, who is a first generation Iraqi American and a fluent Farsi speaker.
From Iran to California, to the rest of the world
Behnam gave a lot of credit for the play’s depth of insight to the playwright Sanaz Toossi, who was born in Orange County, Calif., in 1992 and grew up speaking Farsi at home. Toossi’s parents met in the United States after immigrating from Iran.
“English” was her M.F.A. thesis play, and the idea came while visiting her grandmother’s home in Iran. The visit allowed Toossi to explore her roots.
The play certainly connected with the Pulitzer Prize Board, which awarded Toossi the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2023.
The play also connected with audience member Maria Beltran, 49, who was born in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. She described her occasional struggle getting her points across in English and people’s faces reacting, uncomprehendingly, to her accent when she speaks to them.
The actors in the play spoke of things she knew too well.
“I was looking at them as a person who has felt the same frustration,” she said.
Her daughter Mia Hillmer, 16, also related to the play. As the daughter of an Ecuadorian immigrant, she wondered how best to carry that identity in her life in the United States.
Beltran’s husband, Steve Hillmer, 60, taught English in Saudi Arabia for 16 years and currently teaches English to non-native students at Herron-Riverside High School. His approach to teaching in this time of wall-building, tariffs and war emphasizes connection.
“I create a bridge between a student’s native tongue and English,” he said.
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Dan Grossman is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor. You can reach him at dan@indycorrespondent.org.
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