"It’s exciting to see a portrayal of the complexity of female friendships, including both the niceties and the petty rivalries alike. It’s something I’ve been considering a lot lately in conversations with my female friends — how we have shaped and been shaped by one another, how we’ve grown into or outgrown the roles we’ve been assigned in each other’s lives. There’s so much to appreciate and even more to explore here, within the confidences of rowdy, supportive, spiteful women; I just wish we’d have witnessed it onstage."
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"While 'English' took a snapshot of the resentment-filled emigration process where success means becoming a fish out of water, 'Wish You Were Here' fixes its gaze on the lone fish left in the tank. Should we envy her for holding on to home long after so many have waved the white flag of surrender? That depends on whether you think of home as the water or the other fish who appreciate your filthy sense of humor."
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Once again, Toossi opens a window on a society about which many of us know little or nothing, focusing on the passing of a way of life and obliquely revealing what the West looks like to those living outside its orbit. Thanks to her entirely original viewpoint, she may be the most interesting new writer to emerge this year.
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"That [Sanaz Toossi] succeeds as well as she does is a testament to her powers of observation and ability to write small-talk dialog that isn't that small; repeated phrases, repeated curses, even silences between lines convey a lot. But she also confuses us–needlessly, I think–in keeping the action so local. What's going on in the outside world? Who are these women when they're not just gal-pals dishing the dirt? What, if any, political viewpoints do they share, and how free are they to express them?"
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"It’s Toossi’s intention to lend an ear to women when secluded, but she decidedly has a deeper concern. On her mind is the fragility of friendship, when it flowers and wilts, sometimes flowering again, sometimes never returning, or barely returning."
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"Sanaz Toossi is fast becoming one of my favorite playwrights. She has an uncanny gift with language, conjuring a whole world in simple conversation, layering laughter on vulnerability with delicate subtlety. Her words echo in your mind long after the final curtain."
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“Wish You Were Here” is most obviously about female friendship, and how it changes…with age. It’s a story of the strength and joy of such friendship, and of its almost inevitable decline, told through…five exquisite actresses. Yet both playwright Sanaz Toossi and director Gaye Taylor Upchurch very subtly but firmly root the story in the particular circumstances of Iran’s recent history, so that the losses seem beyond just personal.
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In her understated way, Ms. Toosi brings out the poignancy of life under an oppressive regime, the stakes involved in staying behind or immigrating, the loneliness of losing one’s closest friends, and the rewards and responsibility of friendship. This is not to deny that the play’s string of pearls structure escapes longueurs; it doesn’t.
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