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It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it
GORDON PARSONS relishes a play that reveals how language carries much more than simple communication
ELOQUENT SILENCES: The company in English by Sanaz Toossi
[Richard Davenport]
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English
The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon
WITH language at the centre of current battles, not only with gender identity issues but also within our phoney culture wars, Iranian-American dramatist Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play arrives in Britain spot on cue.
Set in an Iranian TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) classroom, a mixed group of four adult students engage with their linguistic struggles under the demands of their enthusiastic anglophile teacher who insists they communicate only in English.
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