Much of the dramatic tension in Robert Icke's interpretation of Oedipus is spent on organising the logistics of transforming the Greek tragedy into a contemporary domestic and political drama: between the analysis of the circumstances that allowed a sufficient passage of time for a son to marry his mother, or the political situation that caused a country to remain without a government for years, or the presence of a blind seer in a modern state, Icke focuses on the inexorable logic of events that leads to the moment of revelation. With an impressive ensemble, a spectacular set and the chemistry between Hans Kesting's Oedipus and his mother-wife Jocasta (Marieke Heebink), Oedipus is a powerful reinvention that emphasises the contemporary relevance of its fatalistic story.

Icke is hardly a subtle director: when Oedipus and Jocasta have sex, he claws at her breast or appears to be trying to climb back into her womb, and the dramatic moments – a birth certificate investigation is announced, one son comes out, a father dies – are played for maximum emotional impact. The reassertion of child-abuse as the foundation of the family curse – for too long, directors and critics have pondered the apparent fickle decision of the gods to destroy the offspring of Laius, when the myth is very clear that it was a punishment for his rape of a child - is a bracing addition, and locates the story within contemporary fears.

These details aside, Icke's lack of nuance undermines the show's power – the epilogue is a lazy steal from cinema, portraying the doomed couple before their fall, and playing on easy irony – even as Kesting and Heebink ensure its immediacy and power. Questions of truth and destiny are always present in any version of Sophocles' source script, but Icke lends it a resonance for contemporary political anxieties.

Reviewed as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Run ended