Zinnie Harris' script for The Scent Of Roses reveals her capacity to skewer the hidden toxicity of the middle-aged, progressive and middle-class white male. Although an environmental catastrophe slowly emerges, and a teenager's anxious response to her parents' conflicts speaks of the dissolution of meaning and language, it is the disingenuous behaviour of Christopher (Peter Forbes) that guides the bleak narrative.

Meanwhile, Harris' direction emphasises the precision and clarity of her dialogues, a series of conversations that expose, variously, a teacher's inappropriate relationship with a student; the frustrated love of a mother for an alcoholic daughter; and the cracks in a marriage. Throughout, the production suggestively explores the relationship between truth and intimacy, public and private and, most intriguingly, the possibility of meaningful consent when deceit is common currency.

The hints of global warming that are scattered throughout the production (dead birds, unseasonal heat) provide an apocalyptic context to the familial conflicts. As Christopher's self-obsession prevents him from supporting his wife and her serious illness, or understanding the nature of his extra-marital affair, the temperature slowly rises and, like the proverbial frog, he fails to realise that he's being slowly boiled alive.

A strong ensemble cast carries the characters to their off-hand, tragic resolution: Neve McIntosh is seductive, fatalistic and outraged as Christopher's wife; Maureen Beattie is appropriately sardonic as his lover; Saskia Ashdown captures the despair of an alcoholic teacher; and Leah Byrne is a rattled, disorientated teenager caught between the adults. If Christopher causes pain, it is those around him who suffer for his failures and arrogance.

This is a contemporary tragedy of failed communication and stultifying meaninglessness. The creeping anxiety, the male fragility that is a form of violence and the use of mundane conversations to depict a world on the point of moral and environmental collapse all combine towards a quiet and devastating conclusion.

The Scent Of Roses, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Saturday 19 March.