SpeakEasy Stage Company

SpeakEasy’s ‘English’ Explores The Tipping Point Between Identity and Heritage

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Cast of ‘English’ at Speakeasy Stage. Photos by Nile Scott Studios

by Shelley A. Sackett

SpeakEasy Stage’s production of Sanaz Toossi’s ‘English’ starts out simply enough. Four Iranian students are studying in Karaj for the Test of English as a Foreign Language Exam (TOEFL) , an English proficiency exam they must pass if they hope to pursue university study abroad, immigration and more. Their teacher, Marjan (a first-rate Deniz Khateri), rules her classroom with an iron fist. They will speak only English during class, and when anyone slips into Farsi, she posts a strike against them on her giant blackboard, practically snarling with scorn.

This is language immersion that is the equivalent of throwing a baby into the deep end to teach them to swim. Yet, her motive, at least in the beginning, seems pure and altruistic. She studied in Manchester, England, an experience that changed her life for the better and one she speaks of with near religious veneration. She believes that she and she alone can help her flock find this same path that opened her world, and she takes her role as their shepherd with the seriousness and zeal of a missionary.

[An effective and engaging scripted touch is that when the actors speak their native Farsi, they do so in fluent conversational English. When they practice English, their speech is more staccato, with a heavily accented cadence of a beginning foreign language student.]

Marjan insists her students leave their Iranian identities outside her classroom door. “English Only!” is underlined twice on the blackboard. The implication is clear — Farsi and all things Iranian are baggage that need to be shed if one is to “make it” in the global arena. “Speaking English is one of the greatest things two people can do together,” she coos, and she means it with all her being.

Her students don’t always agree. Roya (the splendid Layla Modirzadeh) needs to learn English so she can join her son and his family (including a granddaughter whose English name Roya can’t pronounce) in Canada, where they have emigrated and assimilated. She is the oldest of the students and the one with the longest and deepest roots in Iran.

When she learns that Marjan happily gave up her identity in England, letting others call her “Mary” for their convenience and ease, she chafes. People should not have to give up their names to learn a language, she says. “Our mothers get to name us. Not foreigners.”

Zaven Ovian, Deniz Khateri, Josephine Moshiri Elwood

Elham (compellingly played by the feisty Josephine Moshiri Elwood) has taken the TOEFL before and failed. More than the others, she needs to pass this test to pursue her goal of studying gastroenterology in Australia. In addition to her thick Farsi accent and lack of facility with languages,  she faces two other barriers: she despises English and how her voice sounds when she speaks it, and she can’t stand Marjan and her autocratic ways. That Marjan deliberately humiliates and picks on her adds fuel to her hot-blooded flame.

Goli (Lily Gilan James, a senior at Boston Conservatory at Berklee) is a compliant and reticent 18-year-old who happily does as she is told. She is the least interesting, with no axe to grind and nothing to prove. She just wants to pass the exam so she can go to a university outside Iran.

On the other hand, 29-year-old Omid (Zaven Ovian) is an enigma. His English is better than the teacher’s, and he comes up with complex and specific vocabulary, like “windbreaker” during a word game. He and Marjan bond inside and outside class over their seeming shared love of all things foreign, but Omid has a secret he keeps tight to his vest until the play’s end. Ovian splendidly plays out the mystery.

Director Melory Mirashrafi, a first generation Iranian-American, makes the most of Janie E. Howland’s well-designed set and a script that at times moves slowly.

Playwright Sanaz Toossi (who won this year’s Lucille Lortel Award for “English”) takes her petri dish of varied and complex characters and, over 100 intermissionless minutes, seamlessly interweaves engaging theater with an existential examination of identity, heritage, assimilation and alienation.

She poses many important and timely questions. Is there is a tipping point at which the loss of cultural identity outweighs the materials of life in one’s non-native land? Is voluntary immigration something to be encouraged or grieved? What about the generations, like Roya’s granddaughter, who will grow up without hearing Farsi or understanding her cultural heritage?

Is it worth leaving your homeland voluntarily, Toossi questions, to forever be branded a foreigner with an accent, the “other” who will always be asked, “where are you from?” [Toossi’s mother immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in the mid-1980’s following the Iranian Revolution].

When Elham returns to the classroom after taking (and passing with 99%) the TOEFL, it is not to gloat or thank Marjan, but to offer by example a lesson of how you can gain English language proficiency without losing your Iranian soul.

“You are Iranian but your English is a lot of things. It wants to be American and some of the time British and now it does not know what it is. When I speak English, I know I will always be a stranger,” Elham tells Marjan. “I hear my home. What do you hear?”

English’ –Sanaz Toossi, Playwright. Melory Mirashrafi, Director. Janie E. Howland, Scenic Designer. Nina Vartanian, Costume Designer. Amanda E. Fallon, Lighting Designer. Ash, Sound Designer. Emme Shaw, Props Designer. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage at the Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St. Boston, through November 19, 2022.

For tickets and information, go to: https://www.speakeasystage.com/

SpeakEasy’s ‘People, Places & Things’ Takes Us Into the Belly of Addiction

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Marianna Bassham and the cast of People, Places & Things. Photos by Nile Scott Studios.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Like Jonah’s whale, addiction can swallow us whole. Unlike Jonah, however, who was freed after a mere three days of praying and repenting, those stuck in the belly of the addiction beast have a much tougher, longer and shakier road to hoe.

Some are up to the challenge and some crumble under the beast’s daunting weight. Some make it and some fake it. Some don’t know the difference and some could care less. And some will circle their self-destructive drain as long as they can, all the while ferociously denying they’re about to drown.

People, Places & Things, SpeakEasy Stage Company’s first-rate, must-see production, covers a lot of ground and checks a lot of boxes. Playwright Duncan Macmillan unsentimentally tackles the uncertain journey from addiction and recovery and the many shapes and forms it can take. For two and a half hours, the audience is in the thick of the raw process of rehab, detox, group therapy, relapse and the harrowing realization of what “one day at a time’ really looks like.

Nael Nacer, Bassham

If this sounds like a maudlin, predictable trope, it is anything but. Working with Macmillan’s sharp, incisive script, director David R. Gammons has created a phantasmagoria with flashing strobes (light design by Jeff Adelberg) and vibrating sounds (David Wilson) that make us feel like we are marching right beside these crumbling, addicted minds on the verge of self-destruction. He has also amassed a splendid ensemble cast to bring the script to life, most notably the exceptionally talented Marianna Bassham as Emma. Her performance alone is reason enough to high tail to BCA.

The play opens as a play within a play, with a backstage section with costumes and make up tables visible behind a curtain that bisects the sparse set. In the forefront, an area rug and furniture mark the set of Chekhov’s The Seagull, which the audience is plopped into as if dropped from a time machine. It is the final act and the main character Nina (played by Emma/Bassham) is on stage, holding a stuffed seagull and delivering a tragic speech. All seems normally Chekhovian until it becomes obvious that this Nina is completely out of it. She stumbles, blunders and eventually falls, taking the entire stage with her and plunging the set into darkness.

As the lights come back up, we are in the reception area for rehab and Emma is about to let us through the keyhole of what it means to live in her chaotic inner and outer world. The impossibly willowy Bassham is mesmerizing. Her staccato cadence and flawless timing, fluid physicality and frantic attempts to minimize the seriousness of her addiction are simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. Macmillan knows his way around clever dialogue and director Gammons has a powerhouse to deliver them in Bassham.

Kadahj Bennett, Bassham

The intake scenes with the Doctor (an excellent Adrianne Krstansky, who also plays the therapist and Emma’s mother) clue us in to the obstacles Emma will face on her road to recovery, which demands truthfulness as a non-negotiable first of 12 steps. She is an actress, we slowly realize, whose stage is both life and theater. The lines between acting and living her life have become so blurred that when she gives her name as “Nina,” her most recent role, we half believe she believes it.

In fact, she thinks she just needs “a tune up” and is only checking into rehab because no one will hire her unless she is certified as clean. This is all one colossal opportunity for her to both write the script and star in it. She’s not even willing to talk the talk, let alone walking the walk,  “Drugs and alcohol have never let me down,” she declares. “Addiction is a parasite. It will eat you until you’re dead,” the Doctor counters.

Once she is admitted, the bulk of the play is a behind-the-scenes look at residential rehab, from group therapy sessions to tragic relapse and back again. As always, the immensely talented Nael Nacer (Mark) is a standout. A fellow addict, he befriends Emma and holds her feet to the fire. He really cares about his recovery and he cares about her.

Mark has been around the rehab block and knows that recovery cannot happen without honesty, both with oneself and with others. Nacer brings confidence and decency to the role, a casual elegance that makes Mark seem genuine and transparent. He is the perfect foil to Emma’s desperate hiding behind defiance and lies. “If I’m not playing a character, I’m not sure I’m really there,” she finally admits.

There are moments of real surprise and pathos. In particular, a powerful scene when post-rehab Emma tries to make amends to her parents sheds unexpected light on the possible underlying reasons for Emma’s addictions and low self-esteem.

Macmillan has certainly given us plenty to chew on and posed some provocative, core questions. How do we make sense of a world that feels like it’s spinning out of control without self-medicating? How do we live an honest life in a world built on lies, where people reinvent themselves on social media and the “news” embraces alternative facts? How do we let go of control in the midst of chaos? How do we learn to love and be kind to ourselves? And, most importantly, how do we acknowledge those people, places and things that render us powerless over addiction — and then have the courage to leave them behind?

‘People, Places & Things’ — Written by Duncan Macmillan. Directed by David R. Gammon;, Scenic Design by Jeffrey Peterson; Costume Design by Gail Astrid Buckley; Lighting Design by Jeff Adelberg; Sound Design by David Wilson, Video Design by Adam Stone. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at Boston Center for the Arts through March 5.

For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.speakeasystage.com/

Child Is Father to Man in SpeakEasy Stage Company’s “The Children.”

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DRINK PARSNIP WINE. Karen MacDonald, Tyrees Allen and Paula Plum in SpeakEasy Stage’s production. All photos by Maggie Hall Photography.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood had wanted to write about climate change for quite a while when the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan provided the impetus and inspiration. With “The Children,” a must-see production enjoying its Boston premiere at SpeakEasy Stage Company through March 28, she has succeeded in crafting a thoughtful and provocative three-character play that manages to raise profound existential and moral questions while slowing peeling back the layers of this three-some’s long and complicated history.

It is also one heck of a riveting eco-thriller/emotional detective story brilliantly acted by the inimitable stage luminaries Tyrees Allen, Karen MacDonald and Paula Plum.

 

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The lights first come up almost mid-sentence on a rustic kitchen where Rose (MacDonald) stands, trying to staunch the flow of blood as it gushes from her nose and stains her shirt. Hazel (Plum) enters with a towel, trying to assist, but Rose waves her away. Rose asks after Hazel’s children. Hazel casually mentions she thought Rose was dead. Their banter is informal and the tone almost familial, but it is clear from the get-go that theirs is a tricky relationship and that there is something uneasy and troubling in this cottage.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Hazel and her husband, Robin (Allen), both retired, have taken refuge in their country cottage because their pastoral English seaside community has been devasted by a nuclear power plant disaster caused by an earthquake and tsunami. Their farm/home now lies in the toxic exclusion zone. All now in their 60s, the three met as 20-something physicists and engineers when they worked together building the power plant that just melted down.

 

Rose clothes her unannounced arrival—Hazel hasn’t seen her in 38 years—as concern about the disaster and how it has affected Hazel and Robin. But all is not what meets the eye and it soon becomes clear that the three share a complicated entanglement and that Rose’s visit is neither spontaneous nor agenda-less. Yet the question remains: Why is she there?

 

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Kirkwood masterfully delineates her characters, revealing their personality infrastructures slowly, deliberately and subtly. Hazel and Robin raised four children and Hazel, even in her new post-apocalyptic existence where the air is radioactive and electricity is rationed, maintains her rigid domestic and yoga regimens. She is dogmatic in her belief that one must adapt to survive. “If you’re not going to grow, don’t live,” she practically spits at Rose. She is determined to live to a ripe od age and to die on her own terms. She is beholden to none; she has paid her dues.

Rose, on the other hand, never married, spent time in America and has been prescribed birth control pills to extinguish her fomenting libido. As it turns out, that treatment has been only minimally effective, as the smoldering embers of an old triangle soon reveal. She is the wild child yin to Hazel’s buttoned-up yang, mischievously clogging Hazel’s toilet by deliberately doing a “number two” after being asked not to and defiantly smoking cigarette after cigarette.

Robin is the fulcrum between the two, the double-dipper who ended up with Hazel but who still ignites in Rose’s proximity. He copes with his new reality by continuing to farm and care for his cows despite the risk posed by prolonged exposure to radiation. He seems rudderless and passive, going with the flow (including marrying Hazel when she became pregnant despite his arguable preference for Rose), creating no wake.

Over an hour into the 100-minute intermission-less show, Rose’s purpose is revealed: she has come to recruit Hazel and Robin to clean up the radioactive mess their shortsighted and negligent engineering knowingly created. “We built it. We’re responsible. I feel the need to clean it up,” she admonishes. Furthermore, she believes it is their duty to trade places (and, by implication, deaths) with the 20-somethings assigned the task of scrubbing away the radioactive debris. “It’s our duty to a child to die at some point,” the childless Rose chides. “I’ll know when I’ve had enough,” Rose yells back, later admitting, “I don’t know how to want less.”

No spoilers here about Robin and Hazel’s choices, but Kirkwood asks some deep and soul-searching questions. If we know the facts about climate change, why are we failing so catastrophically to change our behavior? Is it enough to stop contributing to the damage or is there a duty to fix what we created and are leaving the next generation? And who are the real children referred to in the title: those who are the actual children, powerless victims inheriting a flawed world or their parents, who act like children with their selfish irresponsibility and assumptive impunity?

“The Children”. By Lucy Kirkwood. Directed by Bryn Boice. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 537 Tremont Street, Boston through March 28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SpeakEasy Stage’s ‘Admissions’ Pierces the Veil of White Male Privilege

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Nathan Malin, Maureen Keiller and Michael Kaye in SpeakEasy Stage’s Production of “Admissions.” (Maggie Hall Photography)

By Shelley A. Sackett

Joshua Harmon’s terrific new play “Admissions,” now making its Boston premiere at SpeakEasy Stage Company through November 30, packs a timely wallop. Set at and near Hillcrest, a toney progressive New Hampshire prep school, the plucky drama starts out poking fun at Sherri, Hillcrest’s white admissions director who is not happy with the draft of the Admissions Catalog she has just received.

It seems the catalog does not bear adequate witness to the milestone achievement of her 15-year tenure: tripling the diversity of Hillcrest’s predominantly white student body from 6% to 18% students “of color.” She knows this because she has counted all 52 pictures, and only three feature non-white faces. That is precisely 5.7%, and Sherri is livid. She has summoned Roberta, the veteran development officer responsible for the draft, to point out her glaring blunder.

Roberta is Sherri’s opposite. She is a frumpy, plain-spoken woman who calls a spade a spade. She is from another era, when personal qualities and merit mattered more than mathematical quotas. Roberta defiantly defends her work, pointing to a photo that features Perry, the son of a biracial teacher. “Perry’s black, isn’t he?” Roberta asks, confused. “Of course he is, but he doesn’t read black in this photo. He looks whiter than my son,” Sherri counters, exasperated. “I don’t see color. Maybe that’s my problem,” Roberta says.

Cheryl McMahon, Keiller

That exchange sets the stage for Harmon’s intelligent and riotous drama that exposes the raw nerve of hypocrisy among white people of privilege who hide behind political correctness, loudly trumpeting an abstract policy of affirmative action and diversity right up until the moment they are personally impacted by its application. Then, these same folks sing a “not in my backyard” refrain. They may talk the talk (and talk-and talk they do), but when push comes to shove, they would never walk the walk.

Sherri’s husband, Bill, is head of school at Hillcrest, where their 17-year-old high-achieving son, Charlie, is a student hoping to attend Yale with his best friend, the not-visually-black-enough Perry. Perry’s white mother, Ginnie, is Sherri’s best friend, neatly tying a bow that encircles and intertwines the play’s characters.

Ginnie and Sherri hang out a lot. Later that day, in Sherri’s kitchen, both sip white wine and wring their hands over their sons’ fates. Today is the day they will find out if they got into Yale. Harmon’s razor-sharp dialogue reveals the first cringe-worthy chinks in their personal moral codes. Ginnie has brought Charlie a cake from Martin’s Bakery, the same one she bought for Perry, despite evidence the baker is a pedophile. “What are you gonna do? His cakes are great,” she says with a shrug. Sherri shares her catalog fiasco, lying to Ginnie that she couldn’t use the picture of her son because it was blurry.

Marianna Bassham, Keiller

Ginnie receives “the” phone call first – Perry, whose application classified him as black, was accepted. When Charlie is deferred, the victim, he believes, of reverse discrimination, Harmon goes to town as Charlie’s parents’ liberalism and personal ambitions for their son collide. “How did I not see this coming,” Charlie wails, as he points an accusing finger at his parents, the architects of the very quota-driven system that denied him his due. “I don’t have any special boxes to check.”

Later in the intermission-less 105-minute production (no spoilers in this review), Harmon asks his audience the same question faced by Charlie’s horrified parents: what would you do if your child became a casualty of the system of ethics and fairness you champion? Would your moral True North shift?

“Admissions,” with its double-entendre title, captured both Drama Desk and Outer Circle awards for 2018 best play, and the SpeakEasy production is a bases-loaded home run with Nathan Malin (Charlie) as its runaway star. This 20-year-old Boston University College of Fine Arts junior brings depth, vulnerability and physicality to a character that could have become a caricature in less capable hands. Cheryl McMahon is equally outstanding as the well-meaning and misunderstood Roberta and Maureen Keiller (Sherri) and Marianna Bassham(Ginnie) bring humor and humanity to their parts. Hopefully, Michael Kaye (Bill) has smoothed out the edges since press night.

Malin Keiller

Harmon, who’s “Bad Jews” took a whack at religious dogmatists, is gay and Jewish and knows a thing or two about life as a minority. “So much of what I think about revolves around questions of identity,” he said in an interview published in SpeakEasy’s program notes. “This play is trying to hold up a mirror to privilege and white liberalism, while remaining very conscious that this is just one narrow slice of a larger conversation.” For tickets and information, go to: https://www.speakeasystage.com/

This review first appeared in the Jewish Journal (jewishjournal.org).

‘Admissions’ – Written by Joshua Harmon; Directed by Paul Daigneault; Scenic Design by Eric Levenson; Lighting Design by Karen Perlow; Costume Design by Charles Schoonmaker; Sound Design by Dewey Dellay; Stage Managed by Stephen MacDonald. Produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts through November 30, 2019.