Theatre reviews: 11 And 12/Laurel And Hardy/A Prayer

11 AND 12 ****TRAMWAY, GLASGOWLAUREL AND HARDY ***BRUNTON THEATRE, MUSSELBURGHA PRAYER ***ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

IN MOSCOW, two young women, apparently inspired by religious faith, walk onto underground trains, loaded with explosives; a few minutes later, they are dead, along with 36 innocent passengers who happened to board with them.

It's not an unusual story, in our times. But it's one we urgently need to understand; and now, here comes the legendary director Peter Brook, back at the Tramway in Glasgow – the venue he helped to discover in 1988 – with a show that takes us deep into the question of why such violence happens.

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It's many decades since Brook was first fascinated by the work of Mali-born writer Amadou Hampt B; five years since that fascination first found its way to the stage, in Brook's French language production Tierno Bokar.

Yet still, nothing in the history of this story, and of Brook's relationship with it, had quite prepared me for the sheer intellectual richness of his English-language reworking of the material, retitled 11 And 12.

Based on a memoir first published in the 1950s, the show tells the story of the life and teaching of Tierno Bokar, a Malian man of wisdom who developed a powerful creed of religious tolerance at a time when his country was riven by conflict, and who died in poverty and isolation after being rejected by both sides in the dispute, which notoriously focused on the question of whether a certain prayer should be repeated 11 or 12 times.

What's remarkable about the story, though, is the insight it shows in demonstrating how such apparently religious disputes interact with the politics of power to create the kind of conflict which has torn so many nations apart. The "11 or 12" war was bound up with the story of French colonialism in North Africa, with the colonial power convinced that those in favour of "11" were secret subversives; and all of this is sketched in with the simplest and strongest brushstrokes in Brook's show, based on a text adapted by Marie-Hlne Estienne.

The style is instantly recognisable to those who have been following Brook's work since the 1980s. The clutter of modern, western civilisation is almost completely stripped away, there is live music created and played on a range of North African instruments by the wonderful Toshi Tsuchitori, and the palette of colour reflects the rich earth tones, the natural reds, and the piercing pale blue of north African textiles and landscape.

And sometimes, the simplicity of the style almost seems out of tune with the complexity of the ideas the show develops, about forgiveness, about the ability to listen and change, and about the idea of vengeance as a fundamentally weak response.

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But as Makram J Khoury develops his majestic and moving performance as Tierno Bokar, and our narrator Amadou – beautifully played by Tunji Lucas – leads us through his own journey towards a true appreciation of Tierno's wisdom, it's impossible not to feel touched and inspired by the sheer richness of the spiritual tradition embodied in this tale, and by its sense of the infinite capacity of this or any spiritual tradition to generate both unimaginable good, and terrible evil.

In the end, it seems peace requires the presence of those willing to die for an ideal of tolerance and understanding; this show embodies those values, with power, wit and grace.

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In the comedy of Laurel and Hardy, there's a basic human simplicity that Peter Brook might well recognise as his own.

Tom McGrath's fine 1976 play Laurel and Hardy – first seen at the Traverse in Edinburgh – is an exquisite study of the nature of comedy, and in particular of its strange, timeless quality, and ambiguous relationship with death.

"No-one must know," says McGrath's Oliver Hardy as he lies dying; because Stan and Ollie exist to make people laugh, and Laurel and Hardy can never die.

Mull Theatre's current touring production of this beautiful text features two fine central performances from Alasdair McCrone as Laurel and Barrie Hunter as Hardy; and it was cheered to the echo by an appreciative audience at the Brunton Theatre on Friday.

It seemed to me, though, that the elegiac rhythm of the play is slightly disrupted by the complexity of Alicia Hendricks' set – too many levels and flaps – and by Alasdair McCrone's double role as actor and director, which makes it difficult for him to stand outside the performance and tighten the pace where necessary.

I don't doubt that this rich, heartfelt production will go with a stronger swing at other performances, perhaps in smaller spaces; but here, it seemed a little out of step, and even a shade distracted.

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Selma Dimitrijevic's latest play, A Prayer, playing this week in the lunchtime Play, Pie and Pint season, also reflects on the nature of performance and clowning; but this show takes the form of a tiny 20-minute monologue, hauntingly performed by leading Scottish actor Sandy Grierson.

Emerging from under a table on which he has been trying to build complex houses of cards, the narrator enters into a strange, nerve-racking one-sided conversation with the audience. It soon becomes apparent that to this strange, half-complete clown figure, the audience is as kind of god; and the idea unleashes a stream of clever and moving speculation about the nature of mystery and unknowing, and the experience of powerlessness in the face of that mystery.

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It's a very brief show, and it occasionally shows symptoms of that unattractive self-obsession that mars so much contemporary theatre work. But Dimitrijevic is a formidably thoughtful and talented writer; and if it's possible to shape such a tiny meditative fragment into a worthwhile piece of theatre, then that's what she has achieved, with this strange theatrical act of prayer.

• 11 And 12 and A Prayer at Oran Mor both continue until Saturday. Laurel And Hardy is at New Galloway and Livingston this weekend, and on tour until 1 May.