Directed by Peter Brook, this new play, which comes to the Barbican as part of an international tour, explores an extraordinary conflict in West Africa under French occupation. It shows how a dispute over whether a certain prayer should be recited 11 or 12 times leads inexorably to hatred and massacres. The question of violence and the true place of tolerance make this epic story more than ever relevant today.
Reviews
The Guardian
Michael Billington
"Style, for some people, is a complex way of saying simple things. For Peter Brook, it has latterly been a simple way of saying complex things. And in this resonant African fable, adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the work of Amadou Hampâté Bâ and here played in English, you see Brook at his best. This is a piece of calm, quiet, meditative theatre that never hectors or raises its voice, but that addresses profound spiritual and political issues."
11/02/2010
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The Independent
Rhoda Koenig
"While 11 and 12 is, as one would expect from its director, Peter Brook, a lovely work of sophisticated simplicity, the note on which it ends is more wistful than wise. "
15/02/2010
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The Financial Times
Sarah Hemming
"Brook’s understated approach produces a curious detachment and lack of tension. The uniformity of pace and slow tempo can become soporific rather than meditative. The story has the feel of a fable, but even so there are just a few too many maxims to digest, and in the Barbican’s large space it doesn’t always generate enough energy to communicate. You end up admiring it more than engaging with it."
12/02/2010
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The Stage
Mark Shenton
"Brook, of course, has probably earned the right to copy himself, but his work has been so much imitated that seeing the painfully slow procession of tableaux and debate presented here, played out against a constant moaning percussion from a single musician stage left, is enervating rather than energising."
11/02/2010
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The Times
Benedict Nightingale
"There’s haunting music and there are fine performances by a mixed- nationality cast not clearly distinguished in the programme. But this is a Brook production to respect. Not, I fear, to love."
12/02/2010
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"Brook’s stance seems to me sanctimonious – or maybe I’m just not sufficiently mellow. I did try to go with the flow, the unusually meandering storytelling and slow-paced delivery. But I kept mentally twiddling my thumbs, thinking that surely, when Bokar advocated peace, it wasn’t endless pauses that he had in mind. In any case, the great sage’s pearls of wisdom turn out to be mostly truisms or mystical twaddle."
14/02/2010
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"he storytelling is didactic, po-faced and slow. The performances are committed, yet not engaging. The highlight, in fact, is Toshi Tsuchitori’s music, articulated with great subtlety. "
11/02/2010
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