It’s Complicated – Amm(i)gone at Wooley Mammoth

At first glance, Amm(i)gone, currently on stage at Woolly Mammoth, might seem like a production for a very particular audience. Adil Mansoor, in a one-person performance, explores his own family tension between his queerness and Muslim faith, all while sharing his experience of translating Sophocles’s Antigone with his mother.

Yes, that’s quite particular.

But while audiences might be hearing Mansoor wrestle with how to embody his authentic self around his devout Pakistani mother, they’re thinking about their own complicated relationships. Because even if they aren’t exploring unease between family and faith, undoubtedly they may be trying to live up to other expectations or hiding some other misplaced guilt or subtle secret.

That’s a shared human experience.

“So many of us have felt a desire to be accepted by our parents and form a new connection in adulthood,” Woolly Mammoth Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyanes said. “Adil gives us a peek behind the curtains to his real-life story in Amm(i)gone, as a queer artist coming from a Muslim family, with the backdrop of a Greek tragedy.”

Fascinatingly, Mansoor gets to the heart of his personal hurt by inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Antigone, a tragic story which he feels has echoes of his own,  into Urdu.

“I was drawn to Antigone’s relationship with her sister, Ismene,” Mansoor said. “In the first scene of the play, the conflict erupts over how much these two sisters love each other. Their disagreement stems from a desire to care for one another. Their struggle against an impossible situation is a dynamic place for my mom and I to begin our conversation.”

Amm(i)gone is presented by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, in association with Kelly Strayhorn Theater, through May 12. Tickets available here.