It is better to come out of the theatre wanting more than wishing there had been less, and such is the case with this monologue by Judith Thompson. Subtitled "How I got fired from the Dairy Queen and ended up in Abu Ghraib, by Pvt Lynndie England", it is a speculation. But a horribly real one. It offers neither explanation nor justification for the behaviour of the woman made infamous by the grainy image of her giving the thumbs-up sign while holding a naked Iraqi on a dog leash at Abu Ghraib prison. What it does do, with commendable dry-eyed toughness, is set England's behaviour in context.
Played with quiet conviction by Waneta Storms, England is shown musing on her past. This is a woman who cannot imagine that she has done anything wrong. Indeed, she perceives herself as "an American Joan of Arc". "I guess I am a bit of a martyr," she says. "I will take the fall for my country any day." England's lack of self-awareness and blind devotion to duty is terrifying, but Thompson avoids being judgmental. Instead, she shows how, as a young woman of low self-esteem and low income growing up poor and unwanted in the land of plenty, England is ripe to buy into an army ethic that sees the Abu Ghraib prisoners as less than human. After all, in England's own upbringing it was a case of survival of the fittest. No wonder she thinks making Iraqis eat shit is perfectly normal.
Perhaps Thompson's England is too articulate and thoughtful, with her encyclopaedic knowledge of Lewis Carroll. But it is a Teflon-coated 40 minutes that never apologises for England, and chillingly suggests that the US's unequal society is a breeding ground for thousands of Lynndie Englands.
· Until August 27. Box office: 0131-228 1404.
