It’s axiomatic among teachers of foreign languages that total immersion is best. For generations, classrooms around the world have temporarily banned the native tongue of students in favor of an insistence not just on the constant expression of that which is being taught but on its cultural context. To learn, the theory goes, means the elimination of that which is most natural and a dive into the sea of a culture not the student’s own.
The play never leaves the classroom. It says little to nothing about what actually is transpiring in Iran, or why women especially might be so anxious to leave, since it’s aimed at deconstructing any notion of English being desirable as some kind of universal global language. That’s merely accepting the hegemonic, the play vociferously argues.
This argument, ubiquitous in the progressive non-profit American theater, is probably not something you would have heard much from the generation of Iranian-Americans older than this playwright. I find the idea of young Iranians with dreams of a U.S.
Whatever your view on the cultural politics, this is a brilliant piece of writing, dramaturgically rich, poetic and humorous, clearly based in lived experience and sufficiently nuanced to impress even relativists like me who are interested in the old liberal counterpoint. The acting here is formidable, especially from Nikki Massoud as Elham, the competitive and frustrated student who most challenges the teacher and thus most expresses the authorial point of view.