“Tierno Bokar” is a new work staged by that promising upstart, Peter Brook. Even now, at 80, his imaginative energy makes most New York theater seem hidebound and timid by comparison. Combine his vitality with the directing chops that come from 60 years of working with actors, and you have a stage artist without parallel today.

The show about a religious dispute in French Africa, which opened last night as part of the Columbia University Arts Initiative, is radical in its simplicity. To keep prices down, Mr. Brook has eschewed BAM, his usual New York haunt, in favor of the LeFrak Gymnasium at Barnard. This puts no strain on the physical production, which consists of straw mats on a low platform and a carved tree at its center.(The toll on the audience is another matter: At one point I thought I saw an usher turn on the gym’s air conditioner, but it was only a mirage, an early symptom of heat stroke.)

Overt theatricality is Mr. Brook’s method here. He uses only what is essential, and lets us see every inch of it. Crucially, this is not the same as the cute theatrics of, say, “The Lion King.” Giant puppets manipulated by visible actors is complexity masquerading as simplicity. Mr. Brook’s stringent approach features 10 actors playing multiple roles, and two musicians playing many instruments. A set change consists of carrying a tiny stool from one spot to another. The flashiest thing on the stage is the supertitles. (The play is performed in French, a legacy of its origin at Mr. Brook’s Bouffes du Nord in Paris.)

The events of the story took place in the 1930s, when Mali was still under French colonial control. A debate split the region’s Islam believers into two camps: Should a certain prayer, “The Pearl of Perfection,” be recited 11 times or 12? Tierno Bokar (Sotigui Koyate), the holy man and mystic of Bandiagara, believes 12. Then an encounter with the forceful and charismatic Hamallah (Pitcho Womba Konga) leads him to change sides. Bokar’s shift leaves him alienated from his own tradition, and makes him a pawn in the controlling schemes of the French authorities.

Narrow religious questions can be mightily exciting, particularly with a dash of geopolitics. But “exciting” is not a word that adheres to this show. Mr. Brook’s company sets a languid, unhurried pace, without outbursts of high emotion. To a bunch of New York swells long accustomed to speedy, spoon-fed thrills, the calm rigor can be off-putting. Here is the downside of Mr. Brook’s spare theatrics: It demands a high and constant level of effort on our part. If you’re not motivated to provide it, the show can be, to put it delicately, uninvolving. It makes for a long hour and a half.

If you make the admittedly strenuous effort to maintain focus (did I mention the heat?), the show offers modest rewards. Consider, for instance, the brain scrambling internationality of the evening. To tell his story about an African holy man, the British director (now based in Paris) draws actors from eight countries to perform in French for Americans in New York. Having pioneered so many things over the last half-century, Mr. Brook stands today at the forefront of theatrical globalization.

Consider, too, the way Mr. Brook embroiders the action here and there with a bright theatrical flourish. One day, while his students are massed at his feet, Bokar hears a baby bird that has fallen from his nest. A musician sits onstage, playing a flute to represent the bird. Bokar lifts it back to the safety of its nest, and the music goes into a happy trill. It is a delightful, imaginatively executed moment.

The play’s text has been adapted by Marie-Helene Estienne from Amadou Hampate Ba’s memoir “The Life and Teaching of Tierno Bokar, The Sage of Bandiagara.” The narrative flow seems ungainly, with a long start and an abrupt finish. But Ms. Estienne conveys the wisdom of Bokar, his modesty and Gandhi-like kindness. “I pray God that at the moment I die I have more enemies to whom I’ve done nothing than friends,” he says.

Frail but lively, tall and thin, Mr. Koyate has the same dimensions as his walking staff. As Bokar, he radiates peace, but finds a laugh when he wants it. (When Bokar sees a movie for the first time, he dismisses the whole of cinema with a perfectly calibrated wave.) Mr. Brook draws this kind of smooth, delicate playing from everyone in the cast. Habib Dembele is winning as Hampate Ba. He narrates the play, stepping through the action to tell us the story. Mr. Konga is a large man, but plays Hamallah with great gentleness. As Bokar’s student Amkoullel, Tony Mpoudja has a youthful charm.

The theme of the play, we are told, is tolerance. After switching to 11, Bokar insists in his quiet fashion that he has nothing against 12. It does not save him from an unhappy fate. You won’t catch me saying anything against tolerance, particularly where religion is concerned. But another element in the show seemed more compelling: the relationship between Bokar and his two students, Amkoullel within the story, and Hampate Ba, the narrator, just outside it.

At the end of the show (spoilers lie ahead, so avert your eyes, imminent theatergoers), after Bokar’s death, he does not leave the stage. A wonderful tableau: His students return to his side, where he seems about to embark on another lesson. Or is he delivering one through the mere fact of his presence? Henry Adams wrote that while the deeds of parents and murderers are finished in an instant – giving life or taking life, as the case may be – the deeds of teachers are not. “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” Mr. Brook’s time-lapsing, continent-jumping poject makes an elegant case for Adams’s words, as does Mr. Brook himself.

Until April 26 (3009 Broadway, at 117th Street, 212-239-6200).