A communication breakdown

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Switch Triptych

Riot Group have seized upon an interesting period in the history of telecommunications for their new show. It's set in a New York telephone exchange, operated entirely by women, at the dawn of Prohibition but also at the dawn of the new automated exchanges which are about to make the girls redundant.

Lucille (Stephanie Viola, pictured with Andrew Friedman) and Philippa (Sarah Sanford) have, however, steadfastly refused to join a union, unlike their loathed Irish sisters in the Boston exchange.

This much-admired American company examines several big ideas with customary intelligence here: the costs and benefits of technological progress; how a capitalist economy survives and the notion of female solidarity.

The telephone exchanges were one of the new opportunities for economic independence women had at the start of the modern age, yet Lucille is the embodiment of subversion. She rebels against every system, exploiting her job for her own ends, essentially making herself unemployable, yet rejecting the rallying call of sisterhood that is trying to save her.

The drama in a Riot Group show lies in Adriano Shapiro's super-articulate writing rather than what happens on stage: characters are rigid and tend to speak directly to the audience rather than to each other. Yet, while Riot Group have used this technique to great effect in previous shows, here it makes for very dry theatre.

Lucille's speeches, often delivered too quickly by Viola, are relentless and exhausting. By the end her anarchy has become a religious protest - a Catholic rebel in a Protestant capitalist system - yet as a character she is frustratingly convoluted.

Switch Triptych is packed with stimulating ideas but struggles to find a stimulating theatrical language.

Until Aug 28 (no perf Aug 17), Assembly @ George Street Assembly Rooms, 12.15pm, £13 to £14, £12 to £13 concs.