Anyone who has learned a foreign language knows how uncomfortable the experience can be .
But learning a new language is also enjoyable , meaningful and humorous .
The play “English ” explores those ideas and more .
The comedy is about four Iranian students in an upper-level English class preparing to take the TOEFL , the Test of English as a Foreign Language .
The play is set in Iran over the course of one term .
The students are all adults with different English abilities and different reasons for taking the class .
Elham is hoping to go to medical school in Australia but must first pass the TOEFL .
She has already failed the test five times and sometimes seems to hate English .
Goli is the youngest of the group .
Of all the students , she is the most excited about learning the language .
Roya wants to learn English so she can communicate with her grandchildren who live in Canada .
And Omid is already very good at English .
It is unclear why he wants to be in the class .
The teacher , Marjan , lived in Britain for several years .
But she is worried about losing her fluency .
“English ” was first released in New York City in 2022 .
It began showing in Washington , D.C ., in January .
It finishes its run in the nation's capital on March 12 .
“English ” recently won the Obie Award for Best New Play .
The Obie awards honor theater that is off-Broadway .
“I wanted to capture that , but I also wanted to honor how funny , textured , and sometimes contradictory Iranians (and all of us ) can be .”
The students in the class play word games , listen to English-language songs , and watch American romantic comedies .
Marjan has banned the use of Farsi in the class .
But the rule is often broken .
The play is entirely in English .
But through changing their voices , the characters show that they are "speaking " Farsi .
When the students speak English , they do so in a strong Persian accent .
Their sentences are often simple , because they are learning and speaking a foreign language .
Words are spoken incorrectly .
But when the characters speak English in a perfect American accent , that means to the audience that they are speaking Farsi .
When the characters speak Farsi , also called Persian , they can communicate much more clearly and can better express themselves .
The play explores how one's personality can change or even be lost when speaking a foreign language .
It also deals with how speaking a different language can make a person question their sense of identity .
Elham , who is a proud person , feels shame when she speaks English .
When speaking English , Elham says she feels “like idiot ” (“Like an idiot ,” Marjan , the teacher , corrects her ).
Marjan says she feels more like herself when she speaks English .
But Roya does not feel like she can have an honest discussion with her son in English .
Tara Grammy is the actor who plays Elham .
She was born in Iran and raised in Canada .
Unlike the character Elham , Grammy enjoys learning languages .
She speaks both English and Farsi fluently and also knows some German and French .
Grammy told VOA , “Different parts of us come out in different languages when you're multilingual .”
She said that English , which she is most skilled in , is the language of her intellect .
Farsi is her language of love , she said .
“When I see a baby or I see a dog or something I speak to them in Persian ,” Grammy said .
In the play , Goli says she likes English because it is like rice—you can make it however you would like .
It is much different than Farsi , which she says always tries to sound like poetry .
“English is simple , it's to the point .
It's accessible , it's universal .
Whereas Persian is absolutely poetry .
It's complex ,” she said .
“You could learn English from reading a book ,” she added .
“But I feel like Persian you have to learn from people , because it's so layered and … just one phrase could mean 10 different things .”
Grammy thinks personality is not lost when speaking different languages .
Instead , she said , “the more languages you know the more access you have to expressing different sides of yourself .”