Alfred Jarry's scatalogical satire brings the Young Genius season to a suitably frenetic conclusion. But for all the coprophiliac vigour of Dominic Hill's production, co-produced by Dundee Rep and the Glasgow Tron, I can't help feeling that Jarry's 1896 play is a once-pioneering work only kept alive through artificial respiration.
Ironically, in view of the Young Genius tag, David Greig's new version sets the action inside a mouldering old folk's home. So Dad Ubu becomes a geriatric fantasist who carries out his dreams of murderous omnipotence under the watchful eye of a white-coated carer. Aided by the bedraggled Mum Ubu, he imagines he's king of Kazakhstan and is licensed to polish off the posh and persecute the poor before being defeated by the claimant to the throne, Buggeroff, and the invading Ruskies.
The concept, jointly attributed to Greig and Hill, certainly gives the action a Marat-Sade-like coherence and allows limitless scope for potty humour: from the moment when Dad Ubu pours the contents of his po over the pianist, the show is sustained by a faecal attraction. But, by domesticating the action, this version also de-politicises it. If Jarry's play has any claim on our attention, it is largely for the way it prefigures the barbaric tyrannies of the 20th century. Once it becomes the story of a farting fantasist, under institutional supervision, it loses much of its potency.
The best way to enjoy this production is as a lewd, rude demonstration of old people's lib. Gerry Mulgrew's Dad Ubu is a whirlwind of manic energy that suggests that inside many senior citizens lurks an unfulfilled desire for murderous anarchy. Ann Louise Ross's Mum Ubu is also a wrinkled-stockinged lust-box who noisily seduces Emun Elliott's young carer. And a chorus of veteran actors cast aside their zimmer frames and suggest they have been invaded by the orgiastic spirit of the Young Ones. It all makes for a jovially lavatorial evening; but when Mulgrew's Ubu led the audience in a singalong, I felt that whatever satirical sting Jarry's play possesses had finally been drawn.
· Until December 10. Box office: 0845 120 7554.
