Monster and martyr

The sheer weight of ideas in The Grand Inquisitor was always going to prevent it soaring. Yet Peter Brook's latest to tour these shores is a worthy pleasure, which occupies the mind and even teases something for the emotions from the dry subject matter.

The tale is from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Set in Spain in the 15th century, it imagines what happens when the eponymous bigwig gets to meet Christ. The Inquisitor (Bruce Myers) also narrates the story, in a space that is close to empty.

On a raised quadrangle, two small chairs are placed a way apart, the second for Jesus, who sits silently staring as the Inquisitor speaks his mind. The Inquisitor is not happy with the "disturbance" of Christ' s coming. The church, he says, has been signed up with Satan for centuries now.

Here, those with pre-conceived ideas might see a satirical rant from a totalitarian murderer. But Dostoyevsky didn't get where he is today by being so one-sided. For the Inquisitor, Christ saves only the few with the strength and means to be good.

The church's oppressive rule is a gift to the many. By ruthlessly limiting their freedoms, she saves their souls from the anguish of
moral choice. Interesting as this is, it's pretty heavy stuff. A fine performance sweetens the pill.

The Inquisitor calls the masses his children, and indeed Myers' speech has the lilting, kindly quality of the very best bedtime storytellers - the same ability, too, to draw his audience's rapt, slightly baffled attention, though some line errors mar the effect on occasions.

It is hard, of course, to stay paternal when you are advocating the burning of heretics, but even here Myers achieves the artful effect of embodying both martyr and monster while never swinging between extremes. As mouthpieces for political philosophy go, he's a remarkably convincing human being.

A shame that the chance to see him is all but gone - the show sold out in advance. When Peter Brook is involved, it seems people manage to expect the Spanish Inquisition.

The Grand Inquisitor