Teaching Artist Leah Reddy spoke with actor Marjan Neshat about her work on English.
Leah Reddy: What is your theatre origin story?
Marjan Neshat: I did my first play when I was 14. It was called Play On, and it was this very silly farce. I was a freshman in high school, and I was a very, very shy, quiet, bookish kid who had immigrated to Seattle in fourth grade. I was definitely not an extrovert, but I was playing this part—referenced as an “airheaded floozy”—who got together with all the men. And I had my first kiss on stage. The first real one happened not too long after, but I did have a moment. I was like, “Well, here it is, they have to do it.” That was my first play.
Even though the material was quite light, it was my first time feeling not on the outside of something. I think in spite of all the highs and lows of pursuing a career in the arts, that feeling of connectivity, of coming together to make something has been the thing that has made me stick to it for this long.
LR: You play an educator in English. Did you have any particularly influential teachers or educational experiences?
MN: I've had many really wonderful teachers. I studied with this one Russian teacher called Slava Dolgachev, who really changed the way that I look at script analysis. I studied Chekhov with him, who I'd say is definitely my writer. I've spent a lot of time on those plays. As a young person right out of drama school, to be exposed to a tradition of looking at scripts so deeply and mining it for every detail of behavior was really, really life changing. It was a kind of script analysis I had not been taught up to that point.
I've also studied with Ron Van Lieu, who I think is one of our greatest teachers. I had never met someone who was so interested in the way each individual student learns. Our joke was always like, “Oh, are you going to make this person cry?” But it wasn't at all about tears. I think somehow he knows how to get to the heart of the person in front of him, he is an incredible reader of people and infinitely curious about the way they learn. And his curiosity about that really makes him an unparalleled teacher. Even though he very clearly knows the result is more to this side versus that side, he will never tell you, “Just do this.” Somehow he manages to get you there with questions rather than answers.
I'm definitely not as gifted of a teacher as Ron. I have my moments, but I am sort of in awe of him. I think when people are doing the thing they are supposed to be doing, when they're in their element, there's something that kind of radiates from them, it's special to witness.
LR: You played Marjan in the 2022 production of English. How are you re-approaching the role this time? How do you think about coming back to a part?
MN: I actually just was with [playwright] Sanaz [Toossi] the other day and she was like, “I think we all have to meet and talk about not just our wishes and dreams for the play, but how we're going to sort of re-enter.” I've talked to [director] Knud [Adams] about it too. Because English was successful and we all felt it when we were doing it, and it was in a smaller, more intimate space. So I'm both excited and frankly quite terrified for it to retain that intimacy [in the larger Todd Haimes Theatre]. And you don't want to go from something that was so beloved and have it not be that. I love the play so much and I love the people so much that there's a certain amount of, I think, personal pressure to have it continue on that trajectory.
But what I said to Sanaz is I think that I have to newly fall in love with it and I have to approach it fresh, but with the trust that I know the play works and I know that the events happen, but I have to re-enter the process fresh. It's really important not to try to repeat a thing, but to still look at it as: what is the event that takes us from this point to that point? And re-investigate it knowing that there's already a lot in my bones and trusting that it can go further and deeper. I think that's true of all great plays, that the more time you spend with them, they only sink deeper into your psyche and give more and reveal more. You can hopefully get to the deeper, juicier part faster knowing that there's something that works there.
LR: Why do you think English resonates so widely?
MN: I think the themes of identity and belonging are ever present in our minds. I've had so many conversations around representation, and I'm still yet to be able to come down on one side of what that means. And I think what this play does so beautifully is that it's not binary. What we feel belongs to us or what we feel represents our souls is not necessarily what we're born to. What we dream about is not necessarily what our parents told us to dream about. There's a lot of questions in this play that speak to that sort of identity and belonging without having one answer, I think that that's what makes it so universal.
I had people messaging me from Hong Kong being like, “I was in this test of English as a second language class, I want to see this play. This is about me.” I had one girl from India who after the play was just sobbing. And she was like, “I never thought that I would go to a play and just see the complexity of my situation expressed.” It happens in an Iranian classroom, but English looms so large in so many countries. And so your relationship to yourself and where you're headed and where the goal is is complex and pretty universal.
LR: One of the things that we have been talking about in the play is the relationship between language and identity, and how you're kind of a different person in a different language. Do you experience that in your own life?
MN: It's a hard question because I think in English, and for the most part I dream in English, but then I hear an Iranian song and I’m touched in a very primal way—there is this truth about my life that had we not left or needed to leave, had we not immigrated, I don't know who I would be. When I see someone who's off the boat from Iran and the way they express themselves, I'm like, “I'm both so connected to you, and yet we don't express things in the same way.” I think part of the story of my life is that I was sort of about to be one person in one language and I ended up with a different trajectory.
Now, I think that my essence or my DNA or the things that make me who I am would've been the same. I was hypersensitive in Farsi, hypersensitive in English. There are all these things, but it's a hard thing to answer. I remember at one point, Tala [Ashe] who plays Elham, said in one of our Q&As, “I feel like when I open my mouth, a different language should be coming out.” And that's particular to the nuance of her. And I don't necessarily feel that way. I do feel in so many ways like someone who is in between worlds.
LR: Focusing a little bit on your character, also named Marjan. In what ways is your relationship to language like hers and in what ways is it different? Is that something you've thought about at all?
MN: She's a very, very complex character who has desires for things that are not quite explainable, and they seem to be contained or represented in the language of English. But actually English is so many things. It's like, “I don't know why I feel more free or why I felt just more aligned to this thing.” It's funny, a lot of my Iranian family who came to see the play were like, “Oh, the playwright’s voice must have been Elham.” That's the clearest representation of, “Hey, she's fighting for an actionable thing.” And there's something about Marjan where it's like, “Why?” When I started to work on it, I had so many questions about; “Well, why is she so in love with this? And why does she build this thing up?”
I think there is something in the mystery of that, that there's something in that character that the unanswerableness of things is her spine. She doesn't really know, but in the way that I think sometimes we don't know why we feel more ourselves in one thing versus another, but we do. I think she lives a huge amount of unmet need. There's such longing. I don't know even if she always knows what she's longing for. I think English in so many ways becomes the container. It's a safer container. You can pour yourself into this thing and build it up in one aspect of your life, but in the end, when the threads get pulled apart, you're left with yourself and your unanswered questions.
LR: What advice do you have for new or young actors?
MN: My students ask me this sometimes too. It's funny, I always thought, oh, when I'm much older, maybe I would teach because I love rehearsal and process. But often when I walk into the room, I feel more connected to being a student than a teacher. I don't want to tell anyone to not be late or don't be on your phone. I sort of just want to jump in and explore Harper and Joe or Callie and Sara, why are they doing what they're doing? I think the truest thing I can say is find what you love and define yourself before other people define you.
You may be a 24-year-old, I don't know from some country that people want to put you in this [box], but you may love Tennessee Williams more than anything. If you lead with what you love, then you are teaching people how to view you instead of them deciding, “Oh, you are this. Go in that corner.” And I think when you love something, it brings out the best in you. And in a profession where your confidence is always on the cutting room floor, I think the only thing that can really save you is to know what you truly love, what lights you up, is not touchable.
LR: Is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to talk about?
MN: I get asked a lot about representation, and I don't think that my answer necessarily ever comes down on the side of one thing. I think it's important. I think it's important that these stories get told. I think it's important that voices are represented so that when you think of people or you think of casting or you think of stories or you think of relatability, that you have a lot to choose from that you haven't just been given one thing so much that you're like, “Oh, so-and-so is the representation of all stories told about family.”