Glyn Maxwell's French Revolution verse drama Liberty appears to have been effectively "guillotined" — as one arts commentator put it — by the bad reviews it received two months ago on its opening at Shakespeare's Globe. The prediction of a happier future for the play on its provincial tour, which was made by the Daily Mail's Quentin Letts, remained unfulfilled when it arrived in Oxford on Tuesday: the Playhouse's auditorium was as empty as I've seen it in 40 years of watching plays there.

I find it depressing — even as we celebrate the contribution to the city's culture that this building has made over 70 years — that its prospective audiences should supinely submit to other people's opinions in this way. But if this is what they want to do, then let them listen to mine (and Michael Billington's) as I say that here is a gripping and well-acted play (director Guy Retallack), on a challenging theme, that anyone who delights in theatre would be unfortunate to miss. You have three more days to see if I'm right.

Its setting is Paris at a precise historical period in 1793, long after the Bastille has fallen, shortly after the King has been guillotined (though not yet "the Austrian whore") and the Revolutionaries have come to realise that the freedoms they fought for are inimical to their very survival. In short, it's the time of The Terror.

The focus is a young and (we gather) not particularly successful artist, Evariste Gamelin, and his circle who are first seen at a summer picnic. The group includes his dashing young pal Philippe (Edward Macliam), a quick-witted actress Rose (Kirsty Besterman) and a one-time duke Maurice (John Bett) who is later to suffer much abuse on account of his former status.

Evariste is filled with ambitions for the betterment of his fellow citizens, and a steely determination, shared with his hero Robespierre, that these should not be thwarted by the anti-revolutionary forces within and (more especially) without France.

The sincerity with which these views are held and, indeed, the good intentions that lie behind them, are well conveyed in a fine performance from David Sturzaker, a young actor who greatly impressed at the Playhouse this time last year with Warren Mitchell in Visiting Mr Green. But Evariste's attitudes are, of course, precisely those later held by, for instance, the Nazis and some of those in our time who are waging the War on Terror. When he asks, more than once, how posterity will judge his and others' actions, I fear we have an answer.

Evariste's opportunity to put his skills at the services of the Terror comes when his is appointed a magistrate through the influence of a family friend Louise Rochemaure (Belinda Lang), a former aristocrat who is now as zealous a revolutionary as he. That the two are possibly more than good friends is a suspicion clearly held by his appealing young lover (later wife) Elodie (Ellie Piercey). Her transformation, as the play progresses, from youthful gladness to Ophelia-style madness, is eloquent testimony to her husband's, and the Revolution's, baleful influence.