After an orgiastic whirlwind tour of sex, death and destruction that takes him from Babylon to Troy, Dionysus has ended up in New York in the year 2000, a dirty unnoticed tramp sitting in the subway biding his time. "This city is made to measure for me," he crows, for he knows that his moment is once again coming. In the meantime he has his story to tell, a helter skelter tale of madness and murder in which Dionysus plays both to the gallery and the baser side of human nature.
Written by first-time French playwright Laurent Gaude, this one-man show never entirely persuades it should be on the stage rather than between the covers of a book and although some of the writing is intelligent and muscular an awful lot of it is just too overwrought and moist. All that stuff about the "syncopated wetness of our simultaneous emissions" and "the leafy vastness of your vagina" gets a wee bit tiring.
Chris Porter attacks the part with real energy and guts, but in the end this 75 minutes always feels like literary theatre rather than a no-holds-barred theatrical thrill ride.
· Until Aug 27. Box office: 0131 228 1404.
