The tone of ’11 and 12’ is set straight away with the play’s narrator Amadou walking to the centre of the stage and whilst holding up a pair of beads he says, ‘a bead can become a bomb, as reason is overridden by blind faith’.

The play, based on real events, is set in French colonialist Mali in West Africa in the 1930’s. It is about what happens when Sufi teacher Tierno Bokar (1875-1939) finds himself enmeshed in what is akin to a sectarian civil war over how many times a prayer, the Pearl of Perfection, should be said. Bokar’s clan believes that the prayer should be said twelve times. A rival clan, led by fellow Sufi teacher Cherif Hammallah, says that the prayer should be said eleven times.

Intense fighting develops between the rival clans and religious factions that leads to mass killings and the exile of Cherif Hammallah. Bokar is distraught by the level of violence and destructiveness and in a decisive act he gives way on sticking to the 12 prayer recitation.

In the play’s key scene he is asked if he is afraid of dying, of being beaten, of a martyr’s death, by his actions? He replies, ‘It’s all the same! If you really want to hurt me, forbid me from turning my mind to God’. With his decision Bokar seals his fate, and he goes on to be persecuted by his own people and the French colonialists, and ends up dying an isolated and impoverished death.

The story of Tierno Bokar’s heroism and plea for tolerance is vividly brought to life by Peter Brook’s staging of Marie Helene Estienne’s adaptation of the work of brilliant African writer Amadou Hamapte- Ba, a leading student of Bokar’s.

The play is performed with passion and conviction by a multi-national seven strong acting ensemble along with composer Toshi Tsuchitori, sitting cross-legged far stage right, playing an exotic range of instruments from his cross-legged crouch position. As always with Brook, there is a minimalistic set comprising a large sheet of red fabric, some sand, mats and logs, and a few barren trees.

This is a play with plenty of resonance for our times with our world still being weighed down by intolerance, prejudice and religious zealotry. Peter Brook’s production of ’11 and 12’ is playing this week at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, with the final performance taking place this Sunday 13th June, 2010.

Thursday 3rd June, 2010