ANNA MILLAR

FROM Bob Geldof's solemn battle cries to Midge Ure's omnipresent grin, saturation point is a whisper away as the Live 8 juggernaut picks up pace and column inches as every day passes.

Yet in the world of theatre, or more specifically behind the doors of Theatre Workshop, based in Edinburgh's Stockbridge, things are low key as the company's artistic director, Robert Rae, prepares for rehearsals of Black Sun Over Genoa, a re-working of his 2002 production, Nothing Ever Burns Down By Itself.

Rae was inspired to create his multi-media exploration of the G8 summit after witnessing the news of the riot breaking via television and radio - the fatal shooting of Carlo Giuliani and the reports that 500 people had been injured, and 132 protesters arrested.

"I remember watching the events on television and it just did not compute, so we started talking to Scottish people who had been there for the protests: Christians, anarchists, trade unionists, environmentalists, people from the Left; we wanted to represent all the different groupings," says Rae. "We then took each account and shaped it. We always felt it was a work in progress being done on the basis that one day it would find its rightful place as a more developed piece."

That day, it seems, has arrived. Since the play's first outing Rae has journeyed to Genoa himself to meet Haidi Giuliani, mother to Carlo, the young student shot during the riots. There, through conversations with the Giuliani family and with access to legal defence teams' video footage taken by bystanders and protesters, Rae has re-worked the material to create Black Sun Over Genoa.

ON HIS RETURN from Italy, Rae - who was also responsible for last year's popular hit, The Threepenny Opera - encouraged actors and protesters who took part, to come and audition for the production that will now perform three nights at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre and one at Glasgow's Tramway. The response, he says, was overwhelming.

Since the play's initial conception in 2002, the cast has grown from six to 60, an evolution that Rae hopes, will create a voice for all those who want to use it. "Protest can be very theatrical and carvinalesque anyway, and as a theatre community we can really express that as a collective experience." Constantly in development, Rae asked each cast member to give themselves a name and write what they believed might be their own personal story before weaving it in into the script.

"Theatre is the great educator, not only to watch but to do. There are people in the cast who like acting and there are people who are very committed to the ideas behind the production and wanted to play a part in the process from a creative point of view. It has been very moving: humanity in all its difference."

The director is determined that while the Genoa summit ended in tragedy, the celebratory aspects of the protest should be embraced within the production. The whole first act consists of the protesters' excitement and bustle as they get ready. The second act, after the shooting, brings with it a change of pace. And while a real documentary account, written by the man who held Giuliani's hand as he died, will appear in the show read by an actor, Rae hopes to engage with the positive camaraderie that surrounds the 21st century ideology of protest. "It is a hugely powerful and significant movement that unites around the G8. It is a new politics and a new world."

One voice that will certainly be heard is that of Haidi Giuliani who, having written the introduction for the production programme, will also get up on stage for a 10-minute question and answer session after the show. "She's an extraordinary woman. I think it will be tough for her," says Rae. "But her message is very much a desire for justice and she will be on the front line herself on the July 2 march, where she believes her son would have wanted her to be."

With this year's summit just weeks away, and the looming threat of violence, Rae seems determined to bring the ideologies surrounding the G8 back to their grass roots. "There is a genuine sense of wanting to create a world that is allowed to be diverse, a movement that unites kids in Edinburgh that are against the war with young people who are struggling in farming cooperatives in Mexico. They share the same sets of beliefs: that's very inspirational.

"Bob Geldof banging away about world poverty is just the icing on the cake. Pop culture tends to reflect what has been going on for a long time; there is actually something much more going on. Undoubtedly the sensibilities brought to the fore by these people are great, but it connects on a deeper level than that."

As a way of paring the message down, Rae has left the last words of the production to the children in the cast, who each wrote about their individual hopes for the future: "It is their world at the end of the day," he says.

Rae already has plans afoot for his autumn production, a collaboration with Ghazi Hussein and Nabil Shaban, focusing on the weighty issue of whether information given during torture should be admissible as evidence in court.

Another cheery one then? "After 10 years in the job," says the director modestly, "I'm on a roll."

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (0131-529 6000), June 30, July 1 and 2, 7.30pm; Tramway, Glasgow (0141-422 2023), July 5, 7.30pm