Adil Mansoor’s Amm(i)gone, co-directed by Lyam B. Gabel and performed at The Flea Theater, is a deeply personal and poignant work that explores the intersection of queerness, religion, love, and familial bonds. Inspired by Antigone, the play is not just a retelling but a reflection—of love so abundant it becomes both heavenly and heartbreaking. It is also a tool—an active endeavor by Adil to bridge the gap between himself and his mother, using theater as a means of connection and conversation.
The play was on tour in New York, but Mansoor is a founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former Artistic Director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQA+ youth arts organization. He also holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon. At its core, Amm(i)gone is about the love between a mother and her child. A love shaped by devotion, but also by fear—fear of loss, fear of faith, and fear of fully embracing a reality that challenges long-held beliefs. Adil’s mother loves him, but through the lens of her religious convictions, she struggles to reconcile that love with his queerness. His mother knew what she was supposed to believe, but deep down, she also knew the pain it caused. “What happens to the living when our hopes and dreams are reserved for the afterlife?”
This struggle is what makes Amm(i)gone so universally resonant. Regardless of background or identity, the themes of family disconnection, longing for acceptance, and the weight of tradition speak to anyone who has ever felt at odds with those they love. Growing up queer, feeling isolated, searching for belonging—these experiences are woven into the fabric of the play, making it deeply personal and still widely relatable.
Visually and structurally, the play is layered with meaning. Overhead projections display objects imbued with memory: a piece of sequined fabric, a book, a letter from Adil’s mother, and family photographs. These elements transform the stage into a living archive of his experiences, each layer adding to the story of identity, grief (& joy), and reconciliation.
As an oral historian and folklorist, I was struck by how seamlessly Amm(i)gone integrates storytelling, archival research, and performance. The use of recorded conversations, personal artifacts, and transcribed memories blurs the line between documentary and theater, making it a radical act of self-ethnography.
Watching Adil perform, I was moved by his presence—not just as a storyteller, but as a listener. The play included recordings of conversations between him and his mother or his sister. He wasn’t just recounting memories; he was engaging with them in real time. Despite having performed this piece many times, he was still listening. Still learning. Still navigating the content within the rawness of it all.
At the end of the play, Adil shares that he and his mother still read Antigone together—but now, it is private, no longer a tool for the stage but a dialogue for their relationship. For Adil and his mother to choose to come back together after the inevitable heartbreak that is the mother wound is remarkable. To see Adil work through this on stage is stark and beautiful.
It struck a deep chord with me. As someone who has also experienced a complex mother-child dynamic, Amm(i)gone made me reflect on how storytelling might serve as a bridge for my own relationships. How do we communicate the unspeakable? And when love and faith are in conflict, which force do we allow to guide us?
This piece cracked me open in a way I wasn’t expecting. I had missed its run in Pittsburgh, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen again. I’m so grateful I didn’t. For two days after seeing it, I found myself tearing up, replaying moments in my head, feeling as though Adil had spoken directly to me. It was clear that I wasn’t alone—everyone in the audience sat with him, listened with him, laughed with him, and, when needed, cried with him.
Holding an audience’s attention for an 80-minute solo performance is no easy feat, yet Adil made it feel effortless. I wanted more. I wanted to hear more about his mother, about their conversations, about their ongoing work toward understanding one another.
As someone who has spent years working in oral history, transcription, and documentation, seeing these passions meld so seamlessly with theater—my first love—was radical. Amm(i)gone reaffirmed the power of self-ethnography through the artifice of theater. And it left me wondering: What stories of my own do I need to tell?
Amm(i)gone runs March 25-April 7, 2025 at The Flea.
Lindsay Anne Herring is a performer and folklorist, specializing in art-based research, documentation, and public programming.
PETRICHOR 
Leave a comment