Unpopular opinion: English is way over hyped

I read the script a while ago and finally saw the play today last minute with hiptix gold (Orch E far right).

I have had scored multiple Duolingo free tickets before and had to offload on Theatre due to conflicts. Those went to see it with my tickets all reported that it was excellent, worth repeat viewing etc. It won a Pulitzer in 2023. The critics all love it and I’ve never seen nothing short of raves about it on this subreddit. Maybe I had high hopes going in, especially after having read the script and not quite understanding the hype judging from the script.

The thing is, I am an immigrant. My native language is not English and I took TOEFL many many years ago (and scored over 114 out of 120, which is considered very high). I also study multiple other languages besides my native and English. So I think I sound like the target audience who can really resonate with almost all of these characters.

But I don’t. I felt like there’s no new messages in this plays, except trite and banal quips like “I don’t know where I belong”, “I sound stupid in this accent”, “two languages in me are fighting”, “your mother names you, not the stranger”, etc. I mean, we all know that your ability to speak a language doesn’t signal your other intelligences. Many math geniuses don’t speak English well or at all.

The reason why I felt the above is likely due to the fact that in this play every scene is so short and shallow. Nothing develops and everything cuts short. I don’t see any character development, at all. And most of all, the story arc about the guy went completely over my head. I personally don’t think that’s plausible, like it was written for the sake of a reveal or surprise, but had no real effect at all. It felt laughable and insulting in some ways. And what the heck with the subtly flirting vibes between the engaged guy student and the married teacher!?!?! Just why?!?

I specifically don’t agree with the message that you lose your real identity speaking a foreign language, that you lose your humor, your personality, your real self, that you are much more soft, more you in your mother tongue. That you sometimes feel like you can only speak one and the languages are fighting against one another. Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it. I mean, I had been super into Whorfian hypothesis academically and wrote part of my doctoral dissertation on a related subject, so in that sense I’m actually staunchly in the camp of “language shapes how we think and perceive the world”. I am very much on board with linguistic relativity and linguistic distance. When it comes to different souls, I guess what I’m saying is that, one’s different souls (S) in different languages (L) share the same individual core, the difference is rooted in the linguistic differences as opposed to random. So as opposed to different souls it’s more like S_n= f(S_0) + g(L_n - L_0) + \epsilon

Overall the play just went on and on with lots of nothingness imho with each scene. I got out feeling very underwhelmed.

I start to think that maybe the fact this is so hyped is simply because, in the vast corpus of American literature, this subject matter (linguistic identity, the sense of belonging) is just so overlooked when the 99% of classic American literature deals with racial discrimination, family drama, social inequality, cheating, even flaws of the law system, etc. Stories about us legal immigrants is just so far and few in between. And any entry level educational entertainment of what legal immigrants go through sounds fresh. In that light, I am so glad that this has gotten rave reviews from everyone and everywhere and there should be more work on this subject in the future.

Maybe I’m just not understanding it properly. Lol. In that case please help illuminate the uncultured immigrant here.