THIS autumn has seen a series of superb touring productions at York Theatre Royal, the best set of three in living memory in fact.

First came Headlong's multi-media account of Orwell's big brotherly 1984, which deserves to win prizes; then the Touring Consortium Theatre Company's haunting version of Pat Barker's Regeneration, which brought the First World War into savage yet redemptive focus; and now The Kite Runner, adapted for the stage by a Californian university professor and playwright, Matthew Spangler.

Each play is staring into the very soul of man, presenting our worst behaviour on the cold slab of the stage, history repeating itself through the years. There had been a time when the recession first bit that theatres decided the best policy was to distract us with comedies to cheer us up, however temporarily. Now, we are all so fed up with the endless greyness of non-recovery that we might as well look at what makes us what we are.

Spangler is a professor of playwriting and theatre of immigration in San Jose, where Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, settled after leaving Afghanistan. The two have met, and the resulting adaptation is as good as you could wish one to be.

Given a choice, your reviewer prefers stage transfers from novels not to be driven by a narrator, because on-stage actions should speak just as loud as words, ideally simultaneously, and that is how Spangler presents The Kite Runner. No narrator, but constant drama rooted in both devastating dialogue and even more devastating actions.

Played by adults, Afghanistani childhood friends Amir (Ben Turner) and Hassan (Andrei Costin) are soon to be torn apart, like the triumphant kite "cutting" the line of the loser in the Kabul kite-flying tournament.

What ensues is a web of betrayal, guilt and reconciliation in a male-dominated world of masters and servants, bullies and victims, where Amir's nascent talents as a writer are not appreciated by his macho father, Baba (Emilio Doorgasingh). So male dominated is this world that only one actress, Lisa Zahra, takes her place as Soroya/Mrs Nguyen alongside nine men, and yet Soroya's transformative influence is vital.

Spangler first wrote his adaptation in 2006 and he continues to refine it, doing so once again for this first British touring production. Giles Croft's directing is similarly nuanced, every scene given due weight, complemented by Barney George's designs that evoke both Afghanistan and the United States, as do William Simpson's projections. Look out, in particular, for the ever-changing carpet patterns.

Jonathan Girling's compositions and Hanif Khan's musicianship are vital components too, but above all, it is the performances of Zahra, Doorgasingh and especially Costin and Turner that make The Kite Runner such an extraordinary piece of theatre for our times.

• The Kite Runner, Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company/Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, on tour at York Theatre Royal, until tomorrow, and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, next Monday to Saturday. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk