Mary Brennan

EVEN before the lights dim, Senza Tempo is dealing in intriguing images. For, as we file into the long, vaulted tunnel at the very back of the Arches, the Blonde is already sitting on stage: unconcerned, elegant, enigmatic amid an unruffled sea of gem-bright rugs.

When the lights do dim, this sad little trio creep on upstage. Drab clothes, shabby possessions, and each with a stool that is used - in solemn rotation - as the next stepping stone in their arduous journey towards brief safety. In this case, a large wardrobe. The air is heavy with the drumming of rain, the creaking of timbers - even the Arches' neighbouring cranes fit in, like random bursts of thunder.

The whole sequence, with its cunning drip-feed of little details, looks utterly bizarre and yet it has the feel of so much familiar newsreel footage: natural disasters, enforced flight, displaced persons - and all within such close proximity to someone else's untouched, impervious comfortable life.

Only the Blonde doesn't stay untouched, or indeed unchanged. The deluge, being no respecter of class or beauty, spills over into her boudoir: or rather, this huge paddling pool is unfurled, centre stage. It's a superb touch. For, as the pool slowly fills with water so one's mind also fills, with a mosaic of images and associations stirred by the music (Klezmer, Moorish, religious), the dance - sometimes dreamily sensual, other times fiercely, thrillingly athletic - and by the clever choice of occasional props.

By the end, the two men and three women are utterly drenched. The water has flooded their very being. After bouts of drunken bravado, histrionic penitence, rage, despair, and a kind of torrential madness all (bar one dazed, stubborn soul) pack up and join the centuries-old line of homeless refugees.

A beautifully conceived and executive piece, this, full of comic whimsy and poetic drama but - as one has come to expect with this Spanish company - always expressing cogent insight about individuals and society.