Life During Wartime

"It used to be so easy," whinges the comedian in Reeling and Writhing's Fringe show Funny."We hated Thatcher, apartheid and supported the miners. Now it is more complex." The comedian rapidly finds himself drawn into the black operations of the British army in The War Against Terror, his excuse for the left's moral compromise soon lost in the tumult of counter-intelligence and necessary force as he finds the courage to act decisively against the brutality he discovers.

Political drama thrived during the Thatcher years, when the state was kindly providing artists with a pantomime villain who doubled as wicked step-mother and ugly sister. The election of New Labour provided new hope to the left, only to turn into a morality play about the corruption caused by power: yet rather than aim for the easy target, the once dynamic theatre slipped into a convenient post-modernism. The relative silence of Scottish performance to the egregious deceit of modern politicians appears to reflect a disenchanted apathy or a moral cowardice- perhaps the consequence of seeing the radical firebrands of the past become mired in political squabbles and establishment corruption.

While agitprop theatre can be hopelessly tedious, radical politics have energised scripts since Euripides used the Trojan War to comment on Athens' savage foreign policy in the Fifth Century BC. Domestic politics may have slipped into the background, but the next month demonstrates that companies are beginning to wake up to the emotive power of issue-based drama.

Andy Arnold's decision to invent Mayfesto as a season of avowedly engaged work has brought together companies as diverse as Polish Physical Theatre gang Gappad and writing group INK to tackle global issues: even David Greig, often regarded as Scotland's biggest playwright, is offering a take on West Bank conflict.

The modern political play, however, shies away from the polemical, offering uncertain truths and compassion in place of ideology. Kursk, having toured last year to The Fringe, brings its tragic tale of death beneath the waves to Tramway, and embodies the new ambiguity. Despite taking inspiration from the Russian submarine tragedy, it moderates the intensity by immersing the audience in the experience of a British crew: even the final moments of doom are reflected in a personal tragedy. This suggests that the big themes- espionage, the cold war- were not trusted to engage the audience and that the personal trumps the political.

Rhymes With Purple, on the other hand, make no concessions to sentimentality in Drumhead. Aside from waterboarding each other and a stupid critic who got too close during a rehearsal, RWP claim that "this is us,expressing our discomfort with the apathy about "enhanced interrogation" techniques being legalised by the US government and supported by our administration." Taking descriptions of interrogation from US internment camps, Drumhead questions whether a civilised nation can ever justify the use of torture, even if it is called something else.

During the 1970s and 1980s, there was little shame in explicitly socialist theatre: David Edgar in England, 7:84 and Wildcat in Scotland would regularly produce didactic plays. If this sort of propaganda theatre is now missing, many modern companies have taken the maxim "the personal is political" to dissect the hegemonic ideology of capitalism. Acted Cubed, a young company from Glasgow, offer The Visit, a tale of revenge and materialism. The Traverse hosts Edward Albee's The Goat, which deconstructs the perfect couple.

As part of The Arches' Behaviour, Gary McNair is unleashing his follow up to Crunch. How Soon is Nigh dives in with an imtimate glimpse of the apocalypse.

"I always take a particular interest in things that I don't understand," begins Gary. "And the biggest thing that I don't understand is our time on earth and how that might come to an end. I wanted to do more than to spread fear, like some blockbusters do, to give a personal response."

As one of the young generation of Glasgow artists who straddle the divide between live art and theatre, McNair has already looked at the economic downturn. "Crunch was dealing with similar issues, in that it was imagining a world after one of our biggest structures had collapsed - a financial armageddon. After the world has ended, what use will money be? In that society, if I want your shoes, I'll fight you for them."

McNair and RWP both avoid make grand, absolute statements, but use either ironic distance or multiple perspective to consider serious issues. In the aftermath of the political polarisation of the 1980s, this contemporary tentative question is sensitive and compassionate, seeking to include and make the huge comprehensible.

Living in a country that is at war is not the same as it used to be- the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq have not generated the home front that remains a feature of World War II histories and drama. The subtle nuances of modern theatre reflect a society less comfortable with big ideas and statements, and trying to grapple with pluralism and moral relativism.

At the same time, there is a resurgance of cabaret, as escapism and satire. The arrival of another night from The Itsy Collective, this time at Ghillie Dhu and with a New Orleans' decadence announces the next wave of the revival, as something in opposition to bland variety. Cabaret is a self-contained scene, and holds enough space for the edgy satire of the Martyrs and the showgirl glamour of Gilda Lily: it is no accident that the last great revival was during Germany's period of angst in the late Weimar Republic. The right wing was on the rise, the economic system was a shambles, faith in politicians was dwindling. Nothing like today, then.