by AMY BARRATT

Despite its promising title, The Adventures of Ali and Ali and the Axes of Evil is at best a bit of fun. The cabaret-style show was originally conceived as a sketch series for CBC radio, and it still comes across as a hit-and-miss string of "bits" about being Arab in the "newest New World Order". Co-produced by Vancouver- and Toronto-based companies, it's presented here by Teesri Duniya, the venerable local company that brought us Reading Hebron in 2000.

Compared to that truly shocking, funny, and thought-provoking play, Ali and Ali's attempts at satire are all over the place, and its sincere, give-peace-a-chance ending seems tacked on. Still, Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef are likeable as refugees from Agraba (the fictional home of Aladdin in the Disney movie). If nothing else, it's worth the price of admission to see Distinguished Canadian Actor Tom Butler (at one point, he shows clips of himself in The X-Files and other quality productions) acting as a foil, decked out in purple bloomers and sequinned cummerbund.

Ali and Ali host a gala soirée at La Sala Rossa tonight (March 18) featuring the Kalmunity improv collective and Iraqi hip hop group Euphrates. Remaining performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. at the MAI (3680 Jeanne-Mance, 982-3386)

Barnacle Wood

Of all the interesting theatre on local stages this month, the one that most needs to succeed is probably infinitheatre's Barnacle Wood, opening tonight at the Bain St-Michel. Turfed out of their offices on the Main and reduced to cheesy Agatha Christie fundraisers, infini needs a hit with this Trevor Ferguson-penned drama, the third collaboration between artistic director Guy Sprung and the acclaimed novelist-turned-playwright. Ferguson's first play, Long, Long, Short, Long, given the big-budget treatment in 2002, was memorable for its look and for the beauty of some of the writing, but Ferguson hadn't yet mastered theatrical form. His second play, Beach House, Burnt Sienna, received mixed reviews.

Where Long, Long focused on migrant railway workers, Barnacle Wood continues Ferguson's love affair with the dispossessed of society: the characters in this play live under an ocean pier hoping for work as fish cleaners. Whether or not it proves to be third-time lucky for Ferguson and Sprung, infini must be commended for taking the risks it does. It's only through efforts such as theirs that local English theatre has any chance of producing real art, rather than rehashing the same old, same old.

Barnacle Wood, to April 4 at the Bain St-Michel (5300 St-Dominique), $16–$26, Pay-What-You-Can Sunday matinées at 2 p.m., 987-1774, ext. 3

A Night in November

In November, 1993, the Republic of Ireland met Northern Ireland in a soccer match that would determine which of the two would move on to the World Cup finals. In playwright Marie Jones's A Night in November, Kenneth McCallister, a middle-class, Protestant civil servant, finds himself questioning his attitudes - particularly toward Catholics - as a result of attending this game. The play is described as having "a cast of thousands" but in reality there is only one actor on stage, in this case Daniel Giverin. No stranger to one-man shows, Giverin previously wrote and performed The Two Trees, based on the life and work of W.B. Yeats, at various venues about town.

A Night in November, March 25 to April 4 at the Saidye (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine), 739-7944

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