Petrol Jesus Nightmare #5 (In The Time Of The Messiah), Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Sanity isn't the only casualty

In the apocalyptic Middle Eastern war in which Henry Adam has set his bleak Petrol Jesus Nightmare #5 (In the Time of the Messiah), confusion reigns. The conflict outside the ruined building wheretwo Israeli soldiers are hunkering down is nothing to that triggered inside by the arrival of an evangelical oil millionaire from Texas and the fanatical, drink-fuelled Rabbi's Wife.

United in a supposed Judeo-Christian plot that could destabilise the world, the two visitors are in the safekeeping of Captain Yossariat. Adam confronts the possibility that fanatical faith, a perverse view of world stability and dirty dollars are driving the new world disorder. The soldiers on the ground "keeping back the caliphate", shooting at the "greaseballs", are mere victims of a war over which they have no control.

Sanity appears to be the casualty - in the play, well handled by the cast and the director Philip Howard, as much as in the sniping and bombing. War is degrading and desensitising, that much is made clear. Then Adam whips up a storm between the tourists and Yossariat, who has a neurotic self-hatred and apparent impotence. Fractured arguments and profane dialogue lurch towards pornographic violence which, without any moral depth, escalates sickeningly to a highly inflammatory conclusion.

To 27 August, except 7, 14 & 21 (0131-228 1404)