The African connection: an austere new work by Peter Brook raises questions of faith and destiny.(Interview)

American Theatre, April, 2005 by Croyden, Margaret

PETER BROOK HAS ONCE AGAIN BROUGHT A new work to New York from his home base in Paris. Absent from the American scene since his Hamlet in 2001, the world's most influential living director is showing us neither Shakespeare nor a grand epic like the Mahabharata, but rather a simple, 100-minute play set in pre-independent sub-Saharan Africa and based on a true story about an African Sufi master--a story with much resonance in a post-9/11 world.

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Brook has been interested in Africa for a long time. In 1972 he and his entire troupe traveled and worked in small African towns, generating the memorable productions The Ik and The Conference of the Birds (both shown at La MaMa E.T.C. in New York), and later Le Costume. Now there is...

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