The West Coast premiere of Sanaz Toossi‘s Wish You Were Here at South Coast Repertory is a resounding play with its stunning writing, its beautiful simplicity & grace from director Mina Morita, and the incredible ensemble cast who have such endearing chemistry with each other.

If you are able to make a trek down to Costa Mesa and see a gorgeous play with all Southwest Asians portrayed in their sheer magnificence, this is the show.

1978. Protests break out across Iran as five close girlfriends plan weddings, trade dirty jokes and try to live their young lives. As the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to face an uncertain future by staying in Iran or leaving it. In this enlightened comedy, Pulitzer Prize winner and Orange County native Sanaz Toossi chronicles a decade of life, as best friends become friends long lost, searching for the bond that once defined them.

It is an absolutely daunting feat to cover the Iranian Revolution (I HIGHLY recommend researching it so this is a good basic place to start) but Sanaz Toossi does a fantastic job of making the matters personal and intimate by focusing on five best friends who each deal with the situation in their own ways. What is just as remarkable is the keen focus to keep the play about these women and in a time when Southwest Asian stories are rarely told with fully fleshed out humanity, especially from their own people, it is even more wonderful that we get to see such stories of Southwest Asians told from a non-hypermasculine point of view (yes, this is a dig at Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, which I strongly disliked).

With an entire ensemble cast that are of Iranian descent (some who have performed the play multiple times), there is an astounding level of passion that flows from each and every single one of them. You just believe that Awni Abdi-Bahri (Nazanin), Sahar Bibyan (Rana), Tara Grammy (Salme), Mitra Jouhari (Zari) and Artemis Pebdani (Shideh) are dear friends and as dear friends, they come with their own imperfections and baggage that are navigated throughout the show.

While the opening words of the play came off a tad wonky, it quickly finds its foundation thanks to the chemistry of the cast (kudos to casting director Joanne DeNaut for her work in this). The rest of the play carries out in ten scenes that jump from 1978 to 1991 and through it all, Abdi-Bahri is our anchor who carries the entire show. Despite the differences of culture and timeline, there is something universal about trying so hard to hold onto your friends when they slip away from you, and it is here that Abdi-Bahri is stunning to watch.

I wish to also commend the creative team that is largely made up of women of global majority. With the obvious forefront credits being the writer Sana Toossi and director Mina Morita, you have scenic designer Afsoon Pajoufar, costume designer Shahrzad Mazaheri, lighting designer Pablo Santiago, sound designer Veronika Vorel, cultural dramaturg and dialect coach Ana Bayat, stage manager Darlene Miyakawa, assistant stage manager Lauren Buangan, and assistant director Gia Battista Figueroa who all played a marvelous hand in crafting the world with much excellence. It is fantastic to see not only meaningful global majority representation for the actors but also reflected in the production staff.

There is a particular component of the play that is a bit complex to tackle but I will do so since the whereabouts of Rana haunts the play and her Jewish identity plays a central part in her absence. Actor Sahar Bibyan is present at the beginning of the play and is largely absent throughout as the character left the country. She returns at the end (with a cameo as “New Friend” right before) with a powerful monologue that is told from the character’s point of view that the Iranian Jewish community were completely expelled out of Iran and as a result, she wishes to never teach Farsi to her children.

The truth… is a bit more complicated than that. Without going too much into detail here, I encourage our readers who watch this show to research afterwards from all sources. It is, however, worth mentioning here because the playwright’s point of view puts a strong subjective stamp about the Iranian Revolution that is of absolute merit and conviction. It did encourage me after the show to research the extraordinarily complex history of the country and not surprisingly, it is rife with many, many tangled strings of U.S. imperialism.

It’s not often I encounter a show that stirred so many emotions within me while also furiously researching the dramaturgy and history behind it and encouraging our readers to do the same thing. I imagine there will be many discussions and disagreements (which was made evident by two Iranian audience members who were arguing about the show after I left the theatre) but despite the political backdrop to which the show takes place in, the heart is undeniably with the five best friends.

In this heart is the truly vital reason that I will continue to shout from the rooftops that there needs to be more stories about global majority told by global majority artists. This will be especially the case during our times right now, particularly in this country.

Previews: Jan 12-16, 2025
First Night: Jan. 17, 2025
Regular Performances: Jan. 18 – Feb. 2, 2025
American Sign Language Performance: Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025 at 2 p.m.
Recommendation: Ages 16+
Running Time: Approximately 100 minutes with no intermission.
Tickets: Click here for tickets