How far are we from lawlessness? there is a scene in Shakespeare's play that seems out of keeping with the lofty debate elsewhere. It's the one in which a gang of plebians make a brutal attack on the poet Cinna. His crime? He happens to share a name with a conspirator against Caesar.
But far from being an irrelevant diversion, the scene is the play's fulcrum. Closing the first half, as it does here, with an ominous, militaristic rumbling, it is a vision of anarchy that challenges Shakespeare's instinctive quest for order. It is shocking and disturbing, and it raises the question: if you depose a tyrant, what then?
Well, we know exactly what because we've just seen it in Iraq. Out went Saddam and in came the looters. For this transitional period, the old order has been replaced with no order at all, and the rules will be rewritten from the bottom up. In this one brief scene, Shakespeare pushes himself to consider the consequences of such a change, understanding that recklessness will breed more recklessness before order is restored.
If there is a resonance of Iraq in Mark Thomson's inaugural production as the Royal Lyceum's artistic director, it is not coincidental. Dressing his actors in the smart anonymity of Marks & Spencer suits, on the marble and glass of Robert Innes Hopkins's conference centre set, he explicitly makes the case that this is a play for today. These are less ancient Romans than modern career politicians, trying to do what they believe best but losing sight of their own motives.
Just as Tony Blair sees himself as "a pretty straight sort of guy", so Kern Falconer's Caesar, an old-school Tory, supercilious and assured, says he is "as constant as the northern star", while Phil McKee's blue-collar Mark Antony tells us he is "a plain blunt man". The fascination of the play, which Thomson's production expertly brings out, is that none of them is lying. This is an ambivalent world in which would-be bad guy Brutus (an excellent Gilly Gilchrist) really does seem as honourable as they say.
All this holds for the first half. By contrast, the militaristic second half is all sound and fury. And in today's climate it is, of course, preposterous that a politician might resign, let alone commit suicide, as a matter of honour.
· Until October 18. Box office: 0131-248 4848.
