AFTER six months of research and development, House Of Tragic She remains a work in progress, but definitely fit for purpose as a piece of physical theatre/performance art.

Note that distinction from being a conventional,conservative play; free-spirited York company Six Lips use language as much for its sensory impact and its sound as for its meaning, which has a habit of slipping out of reach.

Some might reach for the word "pretentious", particularly when Six Lipstalk of their "expressionist revamp of Brechtian epic theatre", but this is a company full of interesting, challenging ideas on the boundaries of theatre and the flesh-and blood physicality that separates it from cinema.

What's more, the subject matter of House Of Tragic She entirely suits the surrealist form of presentation. The one-hour work is a response to Six Lips' research into mental illness and madness, a world where making sense of things is at the heart of life's problems; a world where emotions rule over other people's idea of the rational; a world beyond comprehension. It is a lonely place, but still in a world shared with others, as the overlapping and interweaving structure shows.

Six Lips co-founders Hannah Wallace and Roxanna Klimaszewska are joined by Stacey Johnstone for a performance where everything is done to the power of three. At the outset, they note the significance of three: three little pigs, three witches, and three women with a colour each. Red for Roxanna; yellow for Hannah; blue for Stacey; each with a suitcase and torch light to match.

The room's aroma is of a newly cleaned hospital ward, where the trio are playing both the "inmates" and those studying them, in a constant loop of questioning and answering and game-playing in episodic vignettes. As much as language, dance, experimental electronic sounds by Calvin Miller and fragmented video imagery by York film-maker James Arden play their part in a haunting, sometimes humorous show that seeks to affirm "we all go a little mad sometimes".

House Of Tragic She will be staged at 41 Monkgate, York, on June 5 and 6. Box office: 01904 623568.