Whatever they’re putting in the croissants over there at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, the American theater schools could certainly use a healthy dose. Not only does the famous program, which continues on in Paris despite the death of its founder, teach bouffon and mime in a nonirritating, non-whiteface sort of way, but it also serves as a powerful catalyst. After leaving the school, students seem more empowered than any other group of graduates – every year sees another bumper crop of exciting young companies that met at the school.

New York audiences already know a few of the best of these. Any fans of the Flying Machine (last season’s immensely successful “Frankenstein”), Pig Iron, or Theatre de la Jeune Lune will recognize the physical inventiveness, precise character studies, and found-object set designs that characterize a Lecoq trainee. With the arrival of the international collective SaBooge at this summer’s Ice Factory festival, we can add another name to the long list of “can’t miss” companies with that common lineage.

With just five actors, a couple of guys playing the saw, and a particularly versatile set of luggage, SaBooge conjures up “Fathom,” a strange and lamp-lit tale of dead-end evolution. One part Lovecraft, one part perverted “Tempest,” the experience is rather like a horror story told in a ship’s hold. With a rocking, nearly lulling rhythm to its scenes, and a virtuosic ability to suggest underwater weightlessness, “Fathom” seems to visit from another time. The aesthetic cohesion should serve as a lesson to other companies – this is how much can be done with nearly nothing.

In Botany Bay, the Australian penal colony, science struggles to take its strides. The “King’s Men,” set up over both natives and deportees, are writing the textbooks, but the scholarship doesn’t much exceed, say, current trends in Kansas.

In colonial Tasmania, phrenology (the practice of reading heads) is the craze of the moment. Led by the bigoted Dr. Winston Cowley (Andrew Shaver), the nervous British overlords can assure themselves that the natives’ skulls predispose them to servitude, and that convicts sport “the bulbous lobe of destructiveness.”

Another society leader, Lady Jane Franklin (Kayla Fell), came with her clergyman husband, but has stayed to engage in a little scientific research of her own. She leads the amateur scientific society, but also has a social experiment on the side – the inexpert rehabilitation of a female prisoner, Sarah (Adrienne Kapstein).

Sarah’s son Fabian (Patrick Costello), though, turns all their scientific presumptions on their ears. Or, if you like, their gills. Fabian, like that other oppressed native, Caliban, can’t really tell if he is fish or man. When a visiting naturalist, Alastair (Attila Clemann), discovers Fabian’s dual nature, the real violence begins. Even Alastair, with his hail-fellow demeanor and eagerness to please, soon has Fabian strung up for examination. Whatever advances Fabian’s human body has made, adapting and changing in order to survive, society soon smacks him back into his place.

The staging, so imaginative it can make your eyes water, leaves us in no doubt that Botany Bay was windy, badly lit, marshy, and a struggle to endure. In fact, the company’s astonishing way with sound design (and a very sound design it is), lets them in for a few too many wordless scenes. With lights fading up and down on Alastair and his new, aquatic chum, we hear the creak of ropes (a clarinet) or the groan of a stiff breeze. Such incredible environmental detail holds out for much of the piece, though not quite to its end. No matter how clever they are – a “clothesline” that works without the benefit of a rope comes to mind – they still could have used a tighter pace.

As an atmospheric study, though, “Fathom” is completely in its depth. Simon Harding’s production design meshes brilliantly with the ensemble, and Jeff Lorenz’s live underscoring will leave us landlubbers breathless. Without doubt, SaBooge will be a gale force to be reckoned with in the future. Catch them now before the tide (or the next Ice Factory show) takes them away.

Until July 9 (66 Wooster Street, between Spring and Broome Streets, 212-868-4444).