Thebans, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh

In her reworking of the Greek tragedies, Liz Lochhead's interest in the human dimension of whatever material she's working with gives a distinctive and highly accessible dimension to her interpretation. Compassion, anger, humour and the highlighting of issues as relevant now as they were to Sophocles and Euripides spiral to the surface of Theatre Babel's integrated and sensitively staged production of Thebans under the direction of Graham McLaren.

In Oedipus Rex, in which we are moved swiftly through the awfulness of the King's fateful discovery, Oedipus is played by Peter Collins, worryingly like Tony Blair in his earnest assurances to his Theban citizens that he is their champion, here in person, listening, "wondering what went on in this place before I came". His wife/mother (Jennifer Black, not a bit like Cherie, I'm relieved to report) takes the more central role in Jokasta as, not dead but very much alive, she tries to pacify her warring sons Polyneikes and Eteokles. Finally, Lucianne McEvoy comes under the spotlight as the fearless sibling, defiant of Kreon's creepy protection and, in all too short a space of time, victim of his hotheaded rashness in Antigone. Vari Sylvester's weird, asexual Tiresias, John Kazek as Kreon and Barrie Hunter's bumbling Guard also stand out in a fine ensemble cast.

Theatre Babel is more than the Reduced Greek Classics company, of course, and the production certainly doesn't lack brio. When not playing significant roles, enclosed within a brightly lit central circle, the nine actors merge back into the shadow of the effectively choreographed chorus. White mouth masks, resonating with references to that recent plague, Sars, muffle some of the commentators' words, which is a shame given the rich patterns, though occasionally clichéd lines, of Lochhead's text and the company's care over its verse-speaking.

Lochhead's liberal adaptation and reduction of several major works into a single two-hour play follows her success with Medea in 2000 and 2001, also with Theatre Babel. But there is too much substance in these epic dramas, too many great big themes boiled down here, for the play to feel quite comfortably structured.

In pruning these myths, and fleshing out the bones of the stories in plain English, with a Scottish slant, they lose something of their emotional impact. They need to be savoured more slowly, with each unfolding of these characters' foibles and the mires into which they steep themselves more gradually anticipated, and shrunk back from.

And beautifully modulated though the final lines are - "When we should have spoken out we were silent, kept our head down, survived... Cities stand so tall we live in them forgetting they can be broken, brought down in flaking ashes, smoke, horror, dust" - Lochhead appears unconvinced that the enduring political dimension of these ancient Greek works is self-evident. Punching it home somehow lessens the impact.

To 24 August (0131-226 2428)