When the Clarion Came to Call. Cockpit Theatre.

STAR RATING:  2 stars

When, upon entering an auditorium, you are told, ‘Take as many pictures as you like, but mind the ceramics,’ it is a good indication that you are in for something that blurs the lines between traditional theatre and something else entirely. Artist and somatic traumatologist Stefan Jovanović Kaasa’s solo performance piece, When the Clarion Came to Call, is very Instagrammable, and many audience members take plenty of photos. Otherwise, the work deliberately defies conventional theatrical classification. “Myth meets movement in a ritual that resists categorisation and demands to be felt before understood,” as the show blurb states.

Kaasa’s production is presented entirely on his own terms, which is refreshing and audacious if nothing else. The ceramics scattered across the stage are beautiful: urns, jugs, disembodied organs, dinosaur feet with sharp claws, and something that looks like an egg from the Alien movies. Kaasa’s costume (whether he is the titular Clarion, a narrator, or something else is unclear) is fantastic. He wears long silver-blonde hair over white make-up, an elongated bleached linen hooped skirt, snowy bandages and ropes, twisted limbs emerging from his shoulders, a parrot’s beak on his nose, and feathered horns sprouting from his head. Think Voldemort from Harry Potter, combined with a Targaryen from Game of Thrones, and the decrepit ghost of Jacob Marley.

The ritual itself (aka the performance) involves Kaasa interacting with the ceramics in various ways, delivering some spoken word, and dancing, accompanied by a selection of spa songs. In fact, the pre-recorded music by Adam Kaasa is quite good – dreamy violin, gentle piano, percussion, drumbeats, and lovely choral harmonies – even if the lyrics are mostly impenetrable. Seth Rook Williams’ lighting is also excellent.

It must be said that 75 minutes of a performer skipping around ovenware, declaring he is “a parasite in search of a warm hole,” might test some people’s patience. Kaasa’s spoken word is interrupted by bird calls and delivered in the gentle, hoarse, breathy whisper that children’s entertainers adopt when telling a spooky ghost story. The tone is evocative but does not significantly enhance the experience.

Who or what is the Clarion? “The Clarion does not explain. It calls,” we are told, which is about as much elucidation as we can expect. If, for any conceivable reason, you miss When the Clarion Came to Call, get your mates round, dress up as Miss Haversham from Great Expectations, put on some New Age music, drop an E, and take a twirl around your best Royal Doulton. You’ll get the idea. It might even be an improvement.

Writer and Director:  Stefan Jovanović Kaasa