Did you ever have a regret for something left unsaid with a friend or loved one, until it is too late to utter those words of understanding or reconciliation? Regrets are painful to forgive. Words unspoken can never be uttered after death occurs, unless it is at the graveside and one sided in their message. For Pakistani playwright and performer Adil Mansoor, this is a life lesson he has vowed to resolve by inviting the audience to go on a journey with him, as he tries to make peace with his own mother. In his journey he hopes to inspire you to speak up and open the doors of communication before death closes them for us.
Thanks to New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, you have the unique opportunity to join Adil in "Amm(i)gone" on his trek of self discovery, to convey a heartfelt apology to his mother, a conversation about returning to Islam and securing a place in the afterlife. For Adil, this is an important conversation and he is using the art of the theater to make it happen. Fifty years ago his mother was in a play and she still remembers her lines today, a half century later. Adil is using this tool to bring “me and my mom back together,” a project in translation, with laughter and vulnerability.
Even though you may not be Pakistani or ever have met a Pakistani person before, there is an intimate and universal message in Adil’s one man show. Once upon a time, his mom was his best friend. Now living in Pittsburgh, since coming to the United States at the tender age of three months, he feels he no longer has the relationship with her he once enjoyed, where she taught him how to speak and how to sing. Her brimming with joy for him has disappeared and he wants it back. He is afraid to tell her he has a long standing personal relationship with Luke, for fear of what she’ll say. He wants her to use her faith to “save her son in the afterlife."
Using the text of the ancient play “Antigone” by Sophocles, Adil hopes to open a channel of understanding with mom and heal what has gone wrong between them. We all recognize the need for resolution between generations, no matter what nationality we identify with in our world. In his personal storytelling, his pictures and projections and mystery words and music, Adil paints a portrait of his family that we all can see as our own. He is urging us to seek forgiveness while the time still exists and be all the better for it. His message is “theater can bring family together.”
For tickets ($49, students $10, grades K-12 free ), call Long Wharf Theatre at 203-693-1486 or online at boxoffice@longwharf.org. Performances are until Sunday, June 23 at Yale’s Black Box Theatre, 53 Wall Street, New Haven around the corner and up the ramp on Wednesday at 6 p.m, Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Embark on the journey of the healing of the heart as part of its first stop in New Haven on a national tour, with Adil Mansoor as our intimate guide, with gratitude to Wooly Mammoth Theatre and Yale University and in partnership with TheaterWorks Hartford, with co-direction by Lyam B. Gabel and set and lighting designed by Xotchil Musser. Adil urges you before the show to pray for someone you love or have lost, during the show to engage in laughter or in remembering and after the show to call your mom or squeeze your sweetie.
No comments:
Post a Comment