Such an old friend is Québécois playwright Michel Tremblay to contemporary Scottish theatre that a critic once described him as "the greatest Scottish playwright Scotland never had". This is the sixth of his plays to be produced in Scotland and translated by Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay (whose previous Tremblay successes include the vernacular Scots version of The Guid Sisters, which made Tremblay's name in 1968). It is his strongest yet.
Inspired by and structured as a Catholic mass, the play presents the loves, lives and beliefs (nearly all broken, with only glimpses of redemption) of 11 Montreal tenement dwellers, spilled out confessionally on their balconies. Their relationships play out in front of us: Isabelle and Yannick revel in their first flush of lust-meets-love ("I want you" is their particular litany); a father and daughter are caught up in a spiral of reliance and blame; a widow rocks on her chair with only memories for company. As the full moon floods them with light and the summer's sultry heat draws them outdoors, the shards of love that remain for most are revealed, tugged at, questioned.
It is the mass-like quality of the production that deepens all this human misery into something transcendental and moving.
A third of the play is delivered in a cacophony of voices, sometimes in unison, as in spoken prayer, other times in two or three groups. Individual voices ("No, no, no," the widow repeats rhythmically for 10 minutes) add to the sense of high church meeting spoken opera. So too does Neil Warmington's magnificent set design - the balconies are like cages or witness boxes, set against the fullest moon you can imagine.
Tremblay is such a gifted writer that he manages to blend the big, universal human dramas with local details that bring the work to life. In this he is supported by a flawless cast.
This is an unmissable play for all Catholics, lapsed and otherwise and for anyone who has ever believed in anything or anyone, anywhere.
Until 13 May. Box office: 0131-228 1404. The play will open the Bite:00 season at the Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), on 17 May and will run until 3 June.
