Victim and villain

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Blackbird
King's Theatre

German über director Peter Stein returns to the International Festival with a towering production of David Harrower's brave and intelligent new play about paedophilia.

After 15 years, Una (Jodhi May) has tracked down the man with whom she had a relationship when she was 12 and he was 40. After a short jail term, Ray (Roger Allam) changed his name, his job and his location, but we are soon aware that for Una life is a prison.

What follows is a two-hour confrontation that examines forbidden erotic love, the selfishness of sexual attraction and how lives can become so damagingly, inextricably linked through desire.

Harrower suggests the unsayable thought, that some victims may be complicit in their abuse.

"You were flirting with me," Ray cries. He doesn't see himself as a paedophile, either - "I'm not one of them!" he says with disgust - but we are never allowed to forget the criminality of his actions, and his self-pitying denials ring hollow.

The two actors give performances of luminous quality and May's long monologue, in which she mesmerisingly describes their flight to a dingy guesthouse where they had sex, holds the audience rapt.

There is one jarring note, an unnecessary directorial flourish that rather diminishes Harrower's fine work.

The added postscript (not in the text) is disjointed and spells out what the audience should be pondering on the way home. A mere cavil, however, on an evening of great theatre.

Until 24 August. Information: 0131 473 2000; www.eif.co.uk.