Barbaric Comedies - King's Theatre, Edinburgh Festival

Don Juan Manuel de Montenegro is not a nice man. He is an inversion of the kindly feudal lord of Ramon del Valle Inclan's imagination: he destroys the life of his sons, even to the point of raping the lover of the best-looking one, Silverface, and keeping her in a prison of fear in his castle; even to the point of cheating them of rents so that he can earn in his own currency - sexual favours - from the miller's wife.

Through de Montenegro - a name associated with Valle-Inclan's own family - the playwright fashions a picture of an entirely corrupt society. Looking back, it is obvious that Valle-Inclan was reeling at the pace of change which gripped his native Spain, and indeed, all of Europe, in the early years of the century. The years between the writing of the last two plays of the three which make up Barbaric Comedies, Eagle Rampant and Romance of the Wolves (1907) and the one which is placed first, Silverface (1922), saw the breakdown of the traditional feudal order, and the conversion of the playwright from a desire for benevolent monarchism to communism. However, no shocking ideological rupture between them is visible: more than any possible antidote to chaos, Valle-Inclan portrays the chaos itself: the women raped, the priests corrupted, the family's ties turned to chains.

And is there no redemption?

None.

It is fascinating that in Catalan director Calixto Bieito's second major Edinburgh offering, he has returned to the territory of his first, Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream. This beguiling play, which ran in the King's Theatre two years ago, also hinges on the breakdown of the natural succession between father and son - the father imprisons the son in the past. It is obviously a metaphor for a sick society to which Bieito can't help returning.

Barbaric Comedies has another obvious literary antecedent, King Lear. Lear's sin was the denial of responsibility, not the hoarding of it, but the result was the same: de Montenegro wanders on his heath with Fuso Negro, the fool, at his elbow. But Fuso Negro is a rapist, the spirit of unrestrained evil, while Shakespeare's Fool is gentle. And the love which de Montenegro bears the only Cordelia figure, his god-daughter Sabelita, is the lust of the rapist.

And is it very bleak?

Yes.

It offers a series of brilliantly bleak images. Perhaps the most telling are those which portray the inversion of religious values in a society in which the Abbot has sold his soul to the devil. Alfons Flores's breath-taking set-design hauls its special effects up and down from the ceiling on medieval chains, never more convincingly than when a crucifix descends, upside down. Costume designer Merce Paloma responds magnificently when, in the sick religious dream of don Miguel's weak and wronged wife, Dona Maria, she sends a blue and white clothed woman scuttling towards the corner, the long, soft fabric of her cloak-whispering sensuously on the floorboards.

The lighting designers, Xavier Clot and Keith Yetton, seem inspired by the most Gothic of Spanish religious painting, bathing the deep, empty stage in El Greco black, only to break it partially and atmospherically. And Oscar Roig's music operates at an unconscious level, spiking the atmosphere with tension, as, for instance, when young Sabelita is carried away on de Montenegro's horse, to the eerie click of castanet-like horsehooves.

Calixto Bieito is the magician behind all of this. His direction has an extraordinary sureness of vision and of purpose. He has created a visible empathy with his Abbey cast, playing thrillingly to their strengths. While mention of striking individual performances would include those of Mark Lambert as de Montenegro, Garrett Keogh as Fuso Negro, Des Cave as the Abbot, Eamon Morrissey as the eejity Don Gallant, and most revelatory of all, perhaps, Joan O'Hara as the long-suffering wife who is prepared to sacrifice the young woman her husband has been abusing, this show is a triumph of ensemble acting.

For once, former Artistic Director Patrick Mason's insistence on the Abbey's tradition of ensemble playing makes sense, and can perhaps be seen to be common to the playing of European national theatres. This hugely prestigious co-production with the Edinburgh International Festival, of which it is the centrepiece, is the most ambitious show in the Abbey's history, and it is part of Mason's legacy.

Interestingly, however, particularly in the later play, Silverface, Bieito pushes the cast to direct physical expression which is far from the Abbey tradition. The plays, part of the same dramatic and mythic rediscovery of the peasant world which brought us the work of Synge, form a startling contrast to his work in their lack of symbolism, their on-stage violence and sexuality. Frank Mc Guinness's text is, in this, a world away from his own plays. The imagery is sparse and simple: "Don't board this boat, pirate," Sabelita warns Silverface.

All that said, the three plays do not hold together with much dramatic tension. There is too little relief from the bleakness in the first two plays, but at least de Montenegro's evil acts as a dramatic engine. Once that runs out of steam in the last play, so does the four-hour-long show and the station of redemption is never reached. In the end, Barbaric Comedies is far more impressive than it is engaging - but it is very impressive.

Runs at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh until Sunday, and then from August 23rd-28th. To book, phone 0044-1314732000; runs at the Abbey Theatre from Monday, October 2nd until Saturday, October 21st, as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.