Stephen Unwin's superb production of Ibsen's drama, in which the sins of the father are visited on the son, ends with the sun rising magnificently beyond the big picture window of the Alving house. Inside, mother and son are plunged into the darkest despair, young Oswald looking blindly out.

Unwin takes the play at a ripping pace - after all, in a mere 24 hours of action the lies of almost 30 years are swept away - and finds depths of horror and absurdity in the tragedy. Stephen Mulrine's new translation is a model of clarity, easy on the ear and unexpectedly funny in the way it points out the characters' self-deceptions.

That is particularly true of William Chubb's wonderfully priggish Pastor Manders, a bigot who might well sign himself off in letters to newspapers as "disgusted of the fjords", and Michael Cronin's ruddy Jacob Engstrand, a man who would sell his own grandmother, but not before blackmailing her out of her last penny.

The evening not only plays on the characters' self-knowledge, that deep down they are no better than they should be, but also on the fact that they have less of a grasp of what is going on than they think. When Engstrand announces that he intends his seaman's hostel to be "a credit to the Captain's memory", you are not sure if this is innocence or irony, particularly as the hostel will undoubtedly be a brothel.

It is Ibsen's rather than Mulrine's fault that the first half of act one has too much exposition (Agatha Christie might have used it as a model for one of her creaky thrillers), but Unwin gets through it quickly. His production also has the great merit of being absolutely clear on the difference between melodrama and genuine tragedy.

It is beautifully cast, too. Diana Quick is a quietly watchful Mrs Alving; her performance knows that less is more, but is never underplayed. And Jody Watson is brave to make Regine almost entirely unsympathetic until her final bitter outburst.

· Until Saturday. Box office: 01223 503333. Then tours to Greenwich and Guildford.