11 and 12
Barbican, until 27 February
A Life In Three Acts: Bette Bourne and Mark Ravenhill
Soho, until 27 February
Peter Brook, the world’s most maddening theatre director, returns to London with an adaptation of a novel set in the French colony of Mali in west Africa. Brook is never as bad as his critics hope nor as good as his fans dream. So he always disappoints somebody. 11 and 12 tells of a schism within an oppressed Muslim sect. Some worshippers recite 11 verses of a certain prayer, others 12. The tiff intensifies and the French authorities order a crackdown. This dispute neatly encapsulates the seismic pettiness of religious controversies but the bust-up isn’t pursued very far.
Preferring discussion to spectacle, the play settles into a lugubrious strain of superficial profundity and much of the dialogue sounds like a bereavement card.
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