It is over 30 years since this play by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona dramatised the iniquities of South Africa's apartheid-era passbook laws. Passbooks dictated where non-whites could live and work, effectively condemning them to being prisoners in their own country, unable to move around freely.
Times have changed, and if the play no longer packs a political wallop, it remains a humane account of how a man, prevented by his passbook from living and working in Port Elizabeth, achieves longed-for residency after discovering a corpse in a ditch.
This is a memory play told by Styles, a township photographer who has swapped life on the Ford production line for independence, and who now records the lives of ordinary Africans who own nothing except themselves. In Peter Brook's production, the photographs in Styles' studio are ghost-like smudges, as if their subjects have somehow faded. Sizwe is having one last photograph taken before he too disappears into oblivion.
Previous productions, including a recent revival at the National with the original cast, have been strongly physical and underlined the play's cheeky, exuberant comedy. Brook's production - played out in an uncluttered space that conjures both photographic studio and the stage of life - is more measured, and has a quiet dignity that is underlined by fine, unshowy performances from Habib Dembélé and Pitcho Womba Konga.
On the plus side, it makes the play less specific to South Africa. But it does nothing to hide the inelegant construction, and allows whimsy to creep in and drain this sad, compassionate play of some of its playful vitality.
· Until May 26. Box office: 0845 120 7554. Then at Warwick Arts Centre. Box office: 024-7652 4524
