Some special chemistry happens when large casts of Scottish women take to the stage. We saw it when Michael Boyd directed Michel Tremblay's The Guid Sisters in 1989 and again when Ian Brown staged Sue Glover's Bondagers in 1991. And it's happening right now, to gloriously comic effect, in Mark Thomson's production of Des Dillon's Six Black Candles.
The 10-strong cast, only two of them men, create exactly the kind of electricity that Dillon describes in his novel of the same name, about six sisters from a working-class Catholic family who gather for ritualistic black magic sessions whenever anyone crosses their path. This time it's the oldest sister, Caroline, who is aggrieved after having discovered her husband on the hearthrug with their 19-year-old babysitter. So it's all round to her council flat and out with the black candles, the graveyard water and the masking-tape pentangle, ready for a malicious spell.
Led by Kathryn Howden, the women create a formidably funny ensemble: tough, sassy, vulgar, witty and almost telepathically sharp. They understand the simmering sibling tensions - many provoked by Jennifer Black's Wendy, who has bettered herself with a job as a teacher and a flat in Glasgow's West End - that mean the conversation can turn from love to hate on a single phrase. And they understand the power they have in solidarity when facing a foe together.
Dillon's play is structured with classical elegance: one set, one evening and a series of surprises, from the return of Caroline's husband to the visit of the parish priest, that keep the comic momentum bubbling. The shock of it is that Dillon has won two playwriting prizes and turned the script into a novel before ever seeing it staged. Its success here - unpretentious, popular theatre at its deliriously enjoyable best - will surely mean we won't have to wait another five years to see it again.
· Until April 3. Box office: 0131-248 4848.
