English

Winner of the Obie Award for Best New American Play and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play! Language and identity intertwine in this incisive, funny, and moving seriocomedy set in a classroom in Iran in 2008, where four adult students are preparing for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. But as they pursue fluency in a language that for them represents access, opportunity, and even escape, they find that while English may expand their world, it might also limit their voice.

BERKELEY REP’S ‘ENGLISH’ IS A MASTER CLASS IN SUBTEXT…. First-rate actors, who under the direction of Mina Morita make these characters bloom…. Actors live in their characters so deeply they exude a joy in it, a kind of magic where you feel like you’ve already known them a long time.

San Francisco Chronicle

WHAT COMES THROUGH SO REMARKABLY IN THIS INTIMATE, OFTEN QUITE HILARIOUS PLAY is how oblivious we can be to the importance of language in expressing our identity…. [Mina] Morita’s wonderful cast works in shades of nuanced reality that allow us to feel like we’re really getting to know these characters...there’s abundant warmth and humor that keeps us deeply invested in these people’s lives…. We may not all speak English, but in English, especially in those moments of comedy, we’re all speaking the same language.

Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

[A] TIGHTLY WRITTEN, WELL-PACED PRODUCTION…finds humor in the growing pains felt when learning a new language while navigating issues of identity and belonging with care.

Berkeleyside

RICH WITH EMOTIONAL UNDERCURRENTS…. captures the slippery and political nature of language and how it shapes how we feel and how we think.

Bay Area News Group

MINA MORITA HAS DIRECTED HER IMPECCABLE CAST WITH A LIGHT HAND…. [The play is] disarming and disorienting in equal measure….Every seemingly offhand comical observation is met with a more nuanced and thoughtful response…. Kudos to Berkeley Rep for bringing English to the Bay Area and giving it such a beautiful mounting.

BroadwayWorld

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