On a stage that looks as if most of the objects were rescued from a junk yard, New International Encounter conjure something extraordinarily rich, drawing on a mixture of languages and a performance style that is a hybrid of clowning and wistfulness. Watching it is like trying to hold a snowflake in your hand: it melts away.
But something lingers in this piece, based on the true story of a four-year-old boy who spent two years living with stray dogs on the Moscow streets and came to believe he was a dog himself. NIE succeed in similarly displacing the audience, persuading us that we are not in SW11 but on the 17th floor of a Moscow apartment block, where Ivan (played by a 46-year-old actor from Manchester) is dreaming his life better while his mother drinks vodka and "makes the noises" with an "uncle". One night, Ivan slips out of the flat and into the world outside.
He is saved from a paedophile by a pack of dogs, and it soon becomes clear that dogs are better than people - "because you can trust a dog". Indeed, these bobble-hat-wearing actors are a lovable collection of mutts, and the piece works because it is convincing as a child's-eye view of the world. If anyone put a foot wrong, the entire illusion would shatter, but nobody does.
The piece loses its way with the introduction of a comic policeman, and then peters out as if the company had run out of time before they came up with an ending. It's small, but it's a little pleasure.
· Until May 3. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
