Heiner Muller's Quartet is based on Laclos's book Liaisons Dangereuses, widely known in the adaptation for the stage by Christopher Hampton. Here, the title notwithstanding, it is pared down to a two-hander - a sexual duel between two French aristocrats - and makes for the steamiest of verbal and physical engagements.

The rivals are obsessed with the seduction and moral corruption of others and with goading each other to new depths of depravity. His current target is the virtuous wife of a prominent nobleman; she tries to divert him to her virginal niece just out of the convent. In each case, he achieves the sexual and psychological destruction of his victim.

There is real evil at the heart of this story of sick people spreading their contagion, but this version has its limitations. I am distrustful of plays which rely excessively on simulated sex acts with dialogue to match, often a smoke-screen for intellectual poverty. The significance claimed by the late author, a "reflex on the problem of terrorism", quite escaped me, and he has devised an unpersuasive ending.

Karl Shiels, an actor who seems to improve with every outing, and Debbie Leeding grasp it with some style. Jimmy Fay directs the 70minute work with a sure control, and Johanna Connor's set has an economic elegance.