It would be a pity if this production, which may mark Peter Stein's swan song at the Edinburgh International festival, ends up being remembered more for its abandoned first-night performance - aborted following technical difficulties - rather than for anything that happens on stage. It could be the case that, for all that it is intelligent, well-spoken and observes human nature with wry humour, this is not vintage Stein. At a stately three-and-a-half hours, it is handsome, well-behaved and just a little bit dull, despite the parade of bronzed, bare-chested Trojans in tiny shorts.
It lacks spark and - most surprisingly in a play about the bitter realities and dangers of fighting a long, brutal and entirely futile war - any connection with the real world around us. It takes place against a no-man's-land of burnished metal that eventually drops to become a steeply raked battlefield across which the opposing armies fight, like strange, beaky birds in their plumed helmets.
Instead of plunging deep into the heart of the play, Stein offers us Romeo and Juliet in times of conflict, in which the double dealings of men - like nasty whispers in the shadows - deal the hand of tragedy, rather than fate. This Troilus and Cressida seem as much victims of their own hopeless naivety as of the conniving of others, and the absence of Greek male sexual menace in the exchange scene makes her faithlessness seem no more than the actions of a girl/woman who is enjoying flexing her vaginal muscles.
The sensuality of the bronzed Trojans, and a Paris and Helen who frolic on a bed like a huge boat - all silky limbs on silk sheets - while all around them men die, provides a sharp contrast to the pasty-faced, dark-clad Greeks who gather to plot treachery and one-upmanship. There are moments to savour which remind us of Stein's truthfulness: the narcissistic Trojans returning from a day in the field stride up the stage like male catwalk models, striking heroic poses; or Pandarus voyeuristically watching the young lovers. There are good performances, including David Yelland as a wily and pragmatic Ulysses, Ian Hughes as a rodent-like Thersites and a Pandarus from Paul Jesson of quite poisonous sweetness. But they can't plug the hole in the heart of this production.
· Until August 26. Box office: 0131-473 2000.
