ENGLISH Reviews

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 4:06pm

Our first Broadway opening of 2025! Let's hope this will be an exciting year of theatre.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:30pm

NY Stage Review

ENGLISH: PULITZER-WINNING PLAY TRANSLATES WELL ON BROADWAY

By Roma Torre

★★★★☆ Playwright Sanaz Toossi schools us on what it means to be a stranger in a strange language

https://nystagereview.com/2025/01/23/english-pulitzer-prize-winning-play-translates-well-on-broadway/

 

ENGLISH: SPEAKING A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, IN A BROADWAY PREMIERE

By Frank Scheck

★★★★☆ Sanaz Toosi's Pulitzer Prize-winning play feels newly richer in this Roundabout production

https://nystagereview.com/2025/01/23/english-speaking-a-universal-language-in-a-broadway-premiere/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:32pm

TimeOut

Five stars

Sanaz Toossi's Pulitzer Prize–winning drama translates to Broadway superbly.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/english-broadway-review-language-translation-iran-sanaz-toossi

"Toossi’s engrossing game of show and tell takes us inside a foreign culture about which many Americans (including me) are woefully underinformed. But it also gently holds us at a meaningful distance. The very device that permits us to eavesdrop on the characters’ Farsi conversations so comfortably—that allows us to hear them as we hear ourselves—has a core of irony: Translating their words into English lets us understand them, but only through our particular linguistic lens in ways that can never quite capture exactly what they mean. This tension bubbles through English and gently overflows in the play’s final scene. The result is—how you say?—exquisite."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:33pm

Washington Post:

This play about learning English is a timely and brilliant must-see

Questions of identity, belonging and understanding are woven through “English,” Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer-winning drama, which is making its Broadway premiere.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2025/01/23/english-broadway-review/

"How we sound to others, and to ourselves, isn’t about just communication but identity, belonging and the ability to forge meaningful relationships. All of those threads are deftly woven through “English,” an intimate yet profoundly resonant drama by Sanaz Toossi. The exquisite Broadway production from director Knud Adams is the first must-see play of the season, and its lessons are likely to stick."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:34pm

Variety:

‘English’ Review: Pulitzer Winner Debuts on Broadway at the Top of the Class

https://variety.com/2025/legit/reviews/english-review-broadway-play-1236282770/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:35pm

WSJ

‘English’ Review: Language and Limits in a Broadway Play

Sanaz Toossi’s buoyant, Pulitzer-winning drama follows a group of Iranians learning English, highlighting the desires and circumscribed circumstances that have brought them to the class.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/english-review-language-and-limits-in-a-broadway-play-1961c6c4

"Crucial to the play’s appeal is the way the relationships between the characters, amiable but distant at first, evolve under the astutely detailed direction of Knud Adams. This is particularly impressive because all the actors played their roles in the play’s off-Broadway debut, and yet the performances still have the bloom of freshness and discovery, in exploring both the characters’ sympathies and antipathies."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:36pm

English review – funny and moving Pulitzer prize winner makes Broadway leap

Todd Haimes Theatre, New York

Sanaz Toossi’s 2023 recipient makes an effortless transfer, focusing on Iranian students studying English, a play that brings both laughter and real emotion

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/jan/23/english-review-broadway

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:36pm

NY Times Critics Pick

If anyone has a gift link, it would be greatly appreciated. 

Updated On: 1/23/25 at 09:36 PM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:37pm

NYT Critic's Pick from Green

Review: In ‘English,’ Looking for a Language to Live In

For the students in Sanaz Toossi’s dramedy about mother tongues and other tongues, the world’s lingua franca is not exactly free.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/theater/english-review-broadway-toossi.html

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:39pm

Deadline:

‘English’ Broadway Review: Pulitzer Winner Lives Up To Expectations In Superb Production

https://deadline.com/2025/01/english-broadway-review-1236262749/

"The cast, without exception, plays every twist, turn, beat and emotion beautifully. If you had to be in a classroom struggling with something that seems always to remain beyond your grasp, you’d be lucky to share space with folks like these. English is a wonder."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:40pm

‘English’: The Broadway Play Everyone Needs to See Right Now

THE RIGHT WORDS

The play “English” won the 2023 Pulitzer Play. Now that it’s open on Broadway, it’s easy to see why.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/english-review-the-broadway-play-everyone-needs-to-see-right-now/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:41pm

NY Daily News/Chicago Tribune

BROADWAY REVIEW: Pulitzer-winning drama ‘English’ is moving exploration of multilingualism

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/01/23/broadway-review-english-by-sanaz-toossi/

"I’ve seen “English” before, in Chicago (it also was seen Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre). The separate Goodman Theatre production had more of a sense of the world outside, to its betterment, and suggested that the classroom wasn’t just a place where you lost yourself but an escape from chaos. But Adams has chosen a rather more ethereal path, scoring the show with emotive piano music and revolving the set in such a way as you feel like these students, and their teacher, are floating in a kind of linguistic netherworld, denying themselves with the prize of getting ahead.

Is it worth it? As this country sees huge changes in immigration enforcement, that’s the question of the night."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:45pm

Observer

Review: ‘English’ Speaks Eloquently of Language and Loss

Pulitzer Prize winner Sanaz Toossi's play about a group of Iranians studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language transfers to Broadway in an impeccable production.

https://observer.com/2025/01/review-english-speaks-eloquently-of-language-and-loss/

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:48pm

The first negative review, and it's probably unsurprisingly from Hofler at The Wrap

‘English’ Broadway Review: Something Gets Lost in the Translation

Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play embraces the tyranny, ignores the chaos in a classroom.

https://www.thewrap.com/english-broadway-review-sanaz-toossi/

"“English” is written in short snippets of scenes, and Toossi emphasizes this choppiness by concluding many of these five-minute skits with an overly pithy remark. Adams brings some connective tissue to the play by providing musical interludes as Marsha Ginsberg’s classroom set spins around to offer us a variety of viewpoints. The only thing missing is the drama.

In one respect, “English” fits perfectly into the dramatic works the Pulitzer committee likes to promote. It tells us that Western culture is bad, everything else is just great."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 9:50pm

Theatermania

Review: English, Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Drama, Bows on Broadway

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-english-sanaz-toossis-pulitzer-prize-winning-drama-bows-on-broadway_1761302/

"The entire original cast has journeyed with the production to Broadway, and of their performances are sharper and more resonant than ever before under the sensitive and steady direction of Knud Adams. Enver Chakartash’s costumes deliver 21st-century Iranian streetwear tailored to each character’s personality. Marsha Ginsberg’s rotating classroom set allows us to see the performances from many angles, with Reza Behjat’s naturalistic light penetrating the curtains and giving us a sense of the passage of time. The effect is balletic when paired with Zinan Refik Zafar’s underscoring, which begins with contemplative piano music in the scene transitions and later expands to the fully symphonic. Everything about this production is strikingly beautiful."

[Esther2]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 10:06pm

Jordan Catalano said: "NY Times Critics Pick

If anyone has a gift link, it would be greatly appreciated."

Here you go... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/theater/english-review-broadway-toossi.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk4.49rk.HHIU0n-nyf3w&smid=url-share

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 10:11pm

Much appreciated :) 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 1/23/25 at 11:21pm

DTLI Consensus: Top marks all around for what is a resonant, thought-provoking play — and a great start to 2025 on Broadway.

9 positive (including the NYT), 1 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/english-2/

 

 

Updated On: 1/23/25 at 11:21 PM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 1/24/25 at 7:53am

Holdren in Vulture is positive

Freedom in Speech: Sanaz Toossi’s English

https://www.vulture.com/article/freedom-in-speech-sanaz-toossis-english.html

"In such a climate, there’s something extra-bracing about seeing Toossi’s play—sensitive, funny, and intimate, powered by its own craft and its excellent ensemble rather than by a shiny name on the marquee—flex its muscles uptown."

[Dreamboy3]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 12:21am

This was underwhelming and there is no excuse for the seat backs of the classroom chairs to block so many sight lines.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 2/2/25 at 7:22am

i was disappointed. 

its often hilarious, and i loved the performances, but it felt like it was trying for seriousness/depth that got lost in unserious/unexplored plot twists, and character plotlines that disappear without exposition/explanation. dont wanna even hint at any spoilers, because i do think this play is certainly well worth watching but i walked out irritated with the choices the (brilliant) playwright made.

still, the first 80ish minutes are excellent, and the performances--especially Tala Ashe and Marjan Neshat--are phenomenal. 

mezzanine was full, and i sat near some persians clearly emotional from memories of home- one lady sang out loud along with the persian song featured towards the end. 

i will say that we were far left mezz and the view was fine except that the way they turned the set, we couldnt really see what movie was playing on the screen, and had to use context clues to determine what it was. hardly a big issue- dont really think theres a bad seat upstairs.

[bwaylyric]

Posted: 2/16/25 at 11:36pm

What a brilliant piece of work - script and performances.  Tonight's performance was paused for about 15 minutes in the latter half of the show due to a medical emergency in the mezzanine.  All of a sudden, we just started hearing "Call 911!"  Anyone here in the mezzanine tonight with more details?

[Dan6]

Posted: 2/17/25 at 11:45am

bwaylyric said: "What a brilliant piece of work - script and performances. Tonight's performance was paused for about 15 minutes in the latter half of the show due to a medical emergency in the mezzanine. All of a sudden, we just started hearing "Call 911!" Anyone here in the mezzanine tonight with more details?"

I was in the orchestra so couldn’t see anything, but was seated next to a doctor who went upstairs. She said that a man fainted but recovered and was walking around. But then we talked with an usher when we were leaving who said it was a heart attack, so not sure. In any event, EMTs responded. Kudos to Tala Ashe and Marian Neshat, who were interrupted in the middle of an intense scene and completed it (starting back about a minute) without a hitch after the break.