Adil Mansoor in “Amm(i)gone.” Photo by Teresa Castracane.
“Amm(i)gone” at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a transformative work that carves its own space in contemporary theatre. Created and performed by Adil Mansoor (with co-direction by Lyam B. Gabel), this uniquely compassionate, innovative solo-performance explores the complexity of relationships and the barriers to connection that “loving hard” creates. In the process, it provides the space that we all need to learn how to listen between the lines.
…a transformative work that carves its own space in contemporary theatre…uniquely compassionate, innovative solo-performance…
Although well established in his queerness and life as an acting teacher and dramaturg, Adil Mansoor (Adil Mansor) longs to bridge the disconnect he feels with his devoutly Muslim mother. Once close, mother and son find it increasingly difficult to converse as their differing beliefs cause even basic words to create painful noise between them. As he approaches 40, Mansoor invites his mother to collaborate with him on translating Sophocles’ “Antigone” into Urdu, hoping that the project will provide a space of connection for them. As may be expected, the project raises many dualities for Mansoor and his mom to discuss. Civil law and moral law, Antigone and Ismene, Pakistan and Chicago, and love and faith are all fair game. Mansoor shares this progression with audiences through “Amm(i)gone,” a project that focuses on his relationship with his mother. While the practicalities of his life naturally bring up polarizing topics (Islamophobia, divorce, death, homophobia, and religion), Mansoor creates an environment that seeks to eliminate “us versus them” and instead seeks mutual understanding.
To get audiences to this point, Monsoor takes them on an experiential journey, using anecdotes, literary allusions, and even translated phone calls to help audiences shape their own powers. One of the best exemplars occurred early on, when he reassured audiences that there is no wrong way to pronounce “Amm(i)gone.” Rather than pretention, the title was an invitation to play. Like any good translator, Mansoor shared his preferred pronunciation while acknowledging the value that other interpretations bring to the table. Is the title a play off the word “Antigone,” a tribute to the Urdu word for mother (Ammi), or an e.e. cummings-like word for invisibility? The answer was not as important as seeing what pulled at audience members as they engaged with the work itself. Another example was how Mansoor trained audiences to recognize the sacred meaning of pauses. Playing an audio clip of a conversation with his mom, Mansoor invited audiences to listen to the flow of their conversation. When his mom paused before saying the word “morning,” Mansoor explained the importance that mornings hold for his mom, and how the pause captured what her words could not convey. From that moment on, every pause in the play held a meaning that words could not capture, and the audience began to perceive more experientially what Mansoor was after.
Thanks to Mansoor’s brilliance and dedication to authenticity, the audience may not have realized that they were learning lessons at all. Instead of a classroom, “Amm(i)gone” flowed like a meet up with a long-lost friend. Mansoor broke the fourth wall from the beginning, giving audience members generous access to his presence. Over the course of the play, the audience fell in love with Mansoor’s charisma and delightful personality. It was not hard to see him as the grown-up version of the 90s kid who discovered theatre by singing poems in Urdu. While they never appeared on stage, the important people in Mansoor’s life came alive through his descriptions of them and the passion in his eyes. By allowing the audience to get to know his authentic self, Mansoor frees them to interact more authentically with the play’s challenging topics.
While the play flowed with a seamless simplicity, its genius was apparent. Mansoor kept an entire audience captivated through what was essentially an 80-minute monologue and every thread he embarked on was brought full circle. What felt like a personal conversation was an interactive work of translation. Audiences were given a text (Adil Mansoor’s desire to communicate with his mom), an objective for the translation (finding a way for Mansoor and his mom to communicate that felt okay), and a set of skills with which to engage the work (learning to think in terms of the wordless value of pauses rather than the “right” or “wrong” way to phrase a passage). While I won’t spoil the ending, I will say that Mansoor prepared his audience well. Like a work of translation, it’s only a project’s final notes that reveal just how deeply a translator has learned.
Whenever a literary reference was necessary, Mansoor was sure to provide context through his words or a helpful video snippet. No matter how many suns it had been since an audience member had read Sophocles (or even if they had never read him at all), no one was lost for significance. Somehow, Mansoor’s winsomeness and authenticity made it feel more okay to be ruthlessly honest about the pains within our most complex relationships and the hope for reconciliation. Mansoor told the audience that “Amm(i)gone” was finished before he had finished his translation of “Antigone” with his mom. Even so, he very much wanted audiences to understand that both he and his mom are Antigone. They each made the same painful choice for drastically different reasons. Of course, as Mansoor smirkingly reminded the audience, having different objectives for the same action makes for great theatre.
While I am confident that Mansoor could carry the play in an empty room, audiences will appreciate the home that the set, lighting, and sound work created for the piece. Set and lighting designer Xotchil Musser’s towering stacks of intricately carved wooden cubes provided an intriguing backdrop for Mansoor’s story. Although a few of the cubes had clear purposes as a desk and a visual display area, the rest were as ambiguous as the play’s title. Whether they were intended to represent the building blocks of life, a progression from order into chaos (or vice versa), innate beauty, or something else altogether is likely less important than whatever audience members pull from them during the play. The set also featured a screen across the back of the stage for Mansoor to show audiences his home video footage, close ups of personal artifacts, and annotated translations from “Antigone,” and phone calls with his mother. Sound designer Aaron Landgraff’s excellent work ensured that audiences could hear the flow of Mansoor’s conversations and, most importantly, the sacred pauses that Mansoor pointed out.
Like all great art, “Amm(i)gone” did not give audiences clear-cut answers. Instead, it held life (and, in this case, the afterlife) up to the light of a display table and left it to the audience to decide what they would do with the content. “Amm(i)gone” provided a language for transcendence and hope, a way to move toward one another even where love and pain coexist.
Running Time: One hour and 20 minutes with no intermission.
“Amm(i)gone” runs through May 12, 2024, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW Washington DC 20004. For more information and to purchase tickets, all the box office (Monday-Friday, 12:00 pm-6:00 pm at 202-393-3939) or go online. Read our ‘A Quick 5″ interview with Adil Mansoor here.
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