Off-Broadway's PlayCo, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Flea, and Kelly Strayhorn Theater have come together to co-present the New York premiere of Amm(i)gone, an intimate exploration of love that goes beyond faith.
Partially inspired by Sophocles' Antigone, the piece is created, co-directed, and performed by Adil Mansoor, with co-director Lyam B. Gabel. Running March 13 to April 7 at The Flea, the piece has been in development for several years.
As the show self-describes "Adil Mansoor is a Virgo Pakistani-American theatre queerdo. His mother is an Aquarian hijabi Quranic scholar. Since she discovered Adil’s queerness online, their once-close bond now needs rescue. In Amm(i)gone, a portmanteau of 'ammi' ('mother' in Urdu) and the Greek heroine Antigone, Mansoor invites us on a journey of heartbreak and repair between mother and son as they embark on an examination and translation of Sophocles’ Antigone into Urdu. Passionately mining Greek tragedy, Islam, and their own memories, they seek to recover their love across faith."
Said Mansoor, “In an attempt to connect with my mom and do the thing that makes me feel the most alive, I asked her to make a play with me. I asked her to adapt Antigone, this play about the afterlife and God and loving your family so hard that it could break you, and have her filter it through her lens as a hijabi Muslim woman. I had imagined we’d end up with a script for actors and set design—that was my thesis pitch in graduate school. But it was never interesting to see it on other bodies. What was always the most powerful was my mom's voice. How she talks about Ismene, how she understands the world, the dramaturgy of this. Quickly, it became very clear the play was for me and my mom.”
Using photos and artifacts from Mansoor’s childhood, videos of productions of Antigone from across the globe, and audio recordings of his mother, the piece of a rigorous autobiography, exploring how art and artist co-mingle into one.
Because the production will be held during Ramadan, there is a prayer room open to all who seek a space for reflection or prayer before the performance. A variety of community nights will be offered throughout the run, which are sponsored by LUNAR, an AAPI-owned hard seltzer company.
For more information, go here.
