On two TV screens a young man talks about a murder. On stage an actor stands in the light. The actor is Edwin Booth, the 19th century American actor whose own fame was eclipsed by his notorious brother, John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Lincoln at a theatre performance.
This meditation on celebrity and on the nature of performance itself is a multi-media box of tricks, so slippery that it is hard to keep grasp of it. Video and live performance run into each other just as life and art collide. But somehow it is never quite as illuminating as it should be. In some respects this is an old-fashioned biographical run through the life of a forgotten actor; but it also wears its post-modern credential in full view as the past and present, real life and performance, image and reality become crazily layered.
It is technically impressive and extremely hard to sit through. There is no way in. It is too full of itself, too ferociously cool, too pleased with its innovations. It is as cold, beautiful and remote as a marble statue.
Until Aug 29. Box office: 0131 226 2428
