WHAT IS THE TOEFL?

TOEFL stands for “test of English as a Foreign Language.” It is an assessment of English language skills taken by university applicants that are primarily speakers of other languages. There are reading, writing, speaking, and listening sections. There is a paper test available in countries where internet testing is unavailable, but 97% of students take the exam online. It takes about four hours to complete, with a single 10-minute break.

MARJAN

Why do we learn language?

GOLI

Um, To say if we are hungry.

MARJAN

Yes! To speak our needs. Why else?

Beat.

OMID

To bring the inside to the outside.

MARJAN

Yes. To speak not only our needs but our wants. To speak our souls. To speak. And to…[motions at her ear] listen. To the insides of others.

–From English by Sanaz Toossi

SPOILER #1: ENGLISH IS NOT ALWAYS ENGLISH

Playwright Sanaz Toossi has done something innovative and fascinating in this play. Each character has a specific, unique accent. When we hear this accent, we’ll know they are speaking English. When we hear unaccented English, we can imagine that the characters are speaking Farsi.

After The Play: Did you get the hang of this quickly as an audience member? How effective was this for you?

SPOILER #2: STORM’S COMING

Director Knud Adams’s work has been called “cinematically precise,” because some of his work in the theater is inspired by the imagery of film. One particularly cinematic moment in this piece comes at the end: it rains onstage. The rain does not appear in a stage direction, so this is part of Knud’s and set designer Afsoon Pajoufar’s interpretation of the play.

After The Play: What impact did the rain have on you as an audience member? How did you interpret the meaning of the rain in this play?

SPOILER #3: IF YOU DON’T SPEAK FARSI…

You may not understand the final words of the play. But you might understand the meaning of it without understanding the words. On Sanaz Toossi’s Instagram, she describes the ending like this: “Marjan basically tells Elham that one day her accent might change with time. And Elham respectfully says…probably not. Elham thanks Marjan and Marjan says don’t be a stranger.”

After The Play:How did this moment impact you? How would you describe the feeling of the end of this play?

“PERSIAN” & “FARSI”

You’ll see that some people in this student guide use the word “Farsi” to refer to a language that other people refer to as “Persian.” Persian is the name of the language in English and Farsi is the Persian word for the language. (A bit like Español for Spanish or Deutch in German.) Farsi is also the word many Iranians use for their language when speaking English.

In conversation with our cast, Sanaz explained her decision to use the word Farsi, “even though some people are angry about it on Twitter,” because it’s the word that her mother and her family use to for their language. “I wanted it to feel accessible to them,” she says.