Le Soulier de Satin, Edinburgh Festival Theatre

11th hour deliverance for captive souls

"How long the time is; how long are the hours." says Paul Claudel's Christian to his God. The 11 hours it takes to experience the French dramatist's epic Le Soulier de Satin, written between 1919 and 1924, are certainly long. But they are also unforgettable.

"How long the time is; how long are the hours." says Paul Claudel's Christian to his God. The 11 hours it takes to experience the French dramatist's epic Le Soulier de Satin, written between 1919 and 1924, are certainly long. But they are also unforgettable.

Claudel's self-indulgent farewell to the theatre, into which he self-indulgently poured everything he knew about the medium, is presented at the Edinburgh Festival by Centre Dramatique National Orléans-Loiret-Centre.

Whatever you may feel about Claudel - a high-flying diplomat and ardent Roman Catholic, who was also a misogynist, an anti-Semite and an Islamophobe - there is so much packed into Olivier Pye's production that you are beguiled rather than bored by the dazzling torrents of words.

The play's 52 scenes are divided into acts which are structured as a series of four days. "The scene of this play is the entire world", we are told, and though the setting is counter-Reformation Spain, the action spans years, continents and possibly even constellations.

Le Soulier is not without problems in its long theological, political, sexual and philosophical dialogues, and its jagged fusion of tragic and comic, dignified and grotesque, the deeply spiritual and the irreverent vaudeville. The focus of the play is the intense love of Don Rodrigue and Dona Prouhèze destined by God and man never to be together on earth.

Philippe Girard and Jeanne Balibar (distinguished by her missing satin slipper, symbolically gifted to the Virgin Mary by Prouhèze) are outstanding in conveying the despair, passion, hope and hopelessness in these demanding roles. But the production, superbly directed and lit by Pye, is driven by the blazing conviction of the whole company, each actor playing their various roles with huge commitment and energy. The versatile little band adds another dimension in its musical commentary and accompaniment, composed by Stéphane Leach.

In an interesting parallel with Claudel's many-sided text, the set rotates. With a reflective screen, interlocking flights of steps, platforms at various heights, an enormous gold ball, a shining, brassy church, an austere palace, and a rippling sea which is red or black, never blue, it's astonishingly suggestive. Costumes are in the same red and black primary colours, with clever use of hats, masks, crucifixes, cut-out ships, glittering armoury, shadowy projections, dreamt up by the set and costume designer Pierre-André Weitz.

It is visually stunning and if it doesn't hold our attention for 11 hours that is the fault of Claudel whose prolixity would have benefited from a severe pruning. Thank goodness, the surtitles system didn't break down, for even those with a good ear for French could hardly keep up. At sight of the final titles, "Deliverance to captive souls!" you could feel the collective sigh of relief from those intrepid members of the audience who hadn't slipped away after one of the all-too-short intervals.

We've had Wagner's Ring cycle, so what other bum-numbing experience can Brian McMaster dream up for Edinburgh? Pye's own play La Servante, given a decade ago in Avignon, ran for 24 hours, and was performed seven times round the clock. But before that's on, could someone please replace the shabby, uncomfortable seats in the Festival Theatre?

Recliners would be nice.