Bali – The Sacrifice, Haymarket Theatre, Leicester

Jainism is one of the nicest religions around, and the Jains are lovely people – kind to animals, implacably opposed to violence and materialism, and honest as the day is long. On the showing of Bali – The Sacrifice, however, their virtues do not include a talent for proselytising or for showbusiness. The play, by Girish Karnad, is based on a 10th-century epic written to win converts, but I think the Jains would have about as much success if they threw a brick through someone's window with their message wrapped around it.

The title, as well as being puzzling (Bali is neither the setting nor anyone's name), did not augur well: subtitles in the theatre are usually a sign that the playwright is inarticulate or the producer pretentious, adding "The Musical", for instance, to the title of works that have no existence in another medium. There is some music in Bali, but not in the form of songs, as we know them. Slow glissandos of strings alternate with furious drumbeats while the young queen chants about the division of the soul into a half that is all "blood and gore'' and a half that "bids you pause before you use a knife on a sapling''. The queen has good reason to favour side two: not only is she soon discovered by the king in the bed of his elephant handler but her response is somewhat lacking in tact ("I didn't plan it – it just happened, and it was beautiful''). She was, she said, seduced by the singing of the mahout, which must have been powerful stuff to made her overlook his chamber, a ruined temple with an altar and rough-hewn steps of blatantly artificial stone. These are framed by heavy, dark-red draperies, which give the set the look of the Sacrifice Room at a defunct Trader Vic's.

The mahout is naturally terrified, especially when the king draws his sword, but then points out: "You are a Jain. You are not permitted to indulge in violence.'' Point taken, the king joins the queen for a medley of part-sung, part-spoken flashbacks to significant moments in their marriage, in which the king's mother emerges as the troublemaker. Apparently driven mad with resentment of the queen for converting her son to Jainism, she has lost her grip on basic mother-in-law tactics, threatening to punish the couple by moving out of their palace.

Learning of the queen's adultery, she ignores her son ("Please, mother, just this once – no bloodshed") to scream, un-Jainlike: "Cut her to pieces! Throw her bones to the dogs!'' But she then offers a compromise – the marriage will be saved, she says, if the couple make a symbolic sacrifice by plunging a knife into a life-size pastry rooster. The king thinks his wife scornful of this plan, but she replies with a line I will remember when much else has faded: "Mock the cock? No, surely not!''

There are three deep mysteries about Bali – The Sacrifice. Why did anyone foist this thing on the public? Why did Naseeruddin Shah decide to squander his considerable distinction on the role of the mahout? And how did the Indians of Leicester, who I assumed would roll up in droves to see him, know to stay home?

To 15 June (0116 253 9797)