Grzegorz Jarzyna's theatre company TR Warszawa – which is based, as its name suggests, in the Polish capital – is among the most celebrated in Europe.

Its work appears on stages all over the world. Scottish audiences had a memorable encounter with the company in 2008, when it brought its acclaimed production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis to the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF).

Given the international acclaim for his work, I am surprised when Jarzyna tells me he didn't expect his show 2008: Macbeth (which he brings to the EIF next month) would travel beyond Poland. Consequently, he explains, he wasn't thinking about the logistics of performing the large-scale piece internationally when he arranged for it to premiere in a disused factory belonging to the big Polish munitions company Bumar.

The arms company, which was (and remains) a significant supplier to the US military, was a prime example of what then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant when, in 2003, he talked of pro-US, former Warsaw Pact countries as "new Europe" (in contrast with the "old Europe" of countries such as France and Germany, which opposed the Iraq War).

While Bumar was happy to be seen to be offering a site for a production by one of Poland's leading theatre directors, company bosses were less pleased when they saw it.

"They were not satisfied after the opening shows," says Jarzyna. "They very quickly threw us out of the space. When they realised that the piece was making statements against the war in Iraq, they didn't like it all. After we had performed the 20 shows allowed in the contract, we were no longer allowed to be in the space."

Following TR Warszawa's expulsion from the old Bumar factory, the company was invited to perform in the United States. They rebuilt the set, on a smaller (but still significant) scale, under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

"I was very surprised by the response of the American audience," the director comments. "I was far more criticised in Poland for this production than I was in the United States. We opened the show in Poland in 2005, and it was not so clear for the Polish people whether they wanted the Iraq War or not. The occupation of Iraq had already happened, and Poland was seeing the opportunity to make some profits out of it. The feeling was that the war was over and we could make some money, especially from the relationship with the United States. So, this production was not so popular in Poland, from the political point of view."

The production Edinburgh Festival audiences will see will, in effect, be the same as that which played in New York. Installed in the cavernous Lowland Hall at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, the set will be on an identical scale to the one built in Brooklyn. Jarzyna is pleased not only with the size of the venue, but also its location. "The space is near Edinburgh Airport," he observes, "so it is still related, somehow, to the war environment."

Detractors of 2008: Macbeth have accused the piece of attempting to shoehorn the play into the director's own political agenda. "Some people ask, 'why do you involve Shakespeare in such a contemporary war?'", says Jaryzna. "They say I am using Shakespeare in a situation that is too realistic and too political. From my point of view, that is the power of Shakespeare and the power of this play; it turns us from the times in which the drama is set to our own times."

In fact, he says, it is as if the drama – in which innocent non-combatants become victims of a military conflict – is crying out to be applied to the 21st century. "I would say that I am not using Shakespeare, but, rather, Shakespeare is using me. He is using me to describe this war."

It is not only the concept at the heart of the production that is contemporary, but also the theatrical means by which Jaryzna explores his ideas. Its slick, sometimes eerily surreal visual aesthetic is very much of our times. Using filmed material in the midst of a prodigious theatrical spectacle, the piece reflects the director's longstanding interest in the relationship between live drama and cinema; for instance, when I visited TR Warszawa's theatre in Poland in March of this year, they were performing T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T, Jarzyna's stage adaptation of Pasolini's film Teorema.

"I realised that the war was in the media," the director remembers. "The drama was so cinematic. It was like a movie scenario, full of action. In the past, the cinema took so much from the theatre. Now, I think, it's time for the cinema to pay back. I think we, in the theatre, can learn a lot from cinema. It makes the theatre much more contemporary, especially in terms of editing, lighting and music.

"I am searching for the golden mix. I want to combine the achievements of the cinema with live theatre. The human emotion and energy which you can feel from the audience is the essence of the theatre. For me, theatre happens in the relations between the actors and the audience. That is something that cinema can never reach."

Although his work has been acclaimed and awarded around the world, it is still a pleasure for Jarzyna to be invited to the EIF, especially with this particular play. "The most important thing for me," he says, "is that I am bringing the wood to the forest. That is the challenge and the honour for me. It is an honour to be invited to bring Shakespeare's Scottish play to Edinburgh."

2008: Macbeth plays the Lowland Hall, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, August 11-18. For further information, visit www.eif.co.uk