Berkoff
is a British practitioner whose career has spanned from 1965 to today.
His
physical, exaggerated style of theatre is both popular and controversial,
defying the norms of naturalistic theatre.
Background History:
Steven Berkoff was born in Stepney, London in 1937, and is still an energised actor, playwright and director. His grandparents left Russia for England in the 1890s. Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent, written by Berkoff, is an informative insight into the Jewish young man, growing up in the east end of London.
Berkoff trained as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy in London and studied movement at the Ecole Internationale de Theatre de Jaques Lecoq in Paris. These two disciplines are key to his creative work. He worked as a mime and physical theatre practitioner at Webber Douglas and first experimented with The Trial using an ensemble of students. In 1968, Berkoff formed the London Theatre Group and like another influential actor/director, Laurence Olivier, proceeded to write, direct and perform with his own company.
The 1970s were a time of rapid change. With the end of censorship, a new writing culture permeated British theatre. Berkoff featured in his own experimental adaptations of Kafka’s The Trial and Metamorphosis, Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as appearing in iconic films of the period.
Features of Berkovian Theatre:
What sets Berkoff apart from theatre is his focus on non-naturalism, his attention on movement rather than voice. As an actor, director and playwright and general non-conformist, Berkoff wanted to shake naturalistic theatre and encourage experiment using the idea of Total Theatre. He believed that the only purpose of a script is to help minimalize and physicalize the story; stripping it down to the bare components.
Total Theatre maintains that every aspect of theatre must have purpose: every movement, that is choreographed; to each line, that is learned perfectly; to each lighting effect, that is used to convey a mood or message; to each sound effect, that enhances the audience’s experience; to each prop that has a use.
The aim of Total Theatre is to create extreme moods to give the audience an overwhelming experience and to shock, amuse, scare, or amaze them. Berkoff particularly embraced this in his Kafka adaptations such as Metamorphosis, The Trial and In the Penal Colony. As a result of Total Theatre, performances are often minimalist, with bare stages and little language so that the focus remains on the physical movement and not on all the effects or the creation of a scene. This serves to detach the audience from the play and make them think about what was being said (much like Brecht, who greatly influenced Berkoff as a practitioner).
"Total theatre is a use of the imagination. Actors express the genius of the body. Express the story without a set".
Steven Berkoff said that his career owes much to his training as a physical theatre practitioner, but perhaps equally, to his working class origins, which, he maintains, give him a different perspective to those around him in a predominantly middle class profession.
Berkoff’s work is influenced by Greek theatre, Japanese Noh and Kabuki, Shakespeare, East End music hall and his Jewish heritage, as well as using the techniques of practitioners like Artaud and Brecht. His own actor training would have included Stanislavski and the techniques used by Lecoq. The use of mime, stylized movement, exaggerated vocal work, direct asides and improvisations within an ensemble environment are all key features.
Characterisation:
Berkoff was a Marxist and so often his politics would be mirrored in his productions. All parts of a play were created like a ballet, a Greek chorus as the actors became the style of the play.
He tends to use actors as "malleable shapes and forms."
'Decadence' is a satire - ungovernable prejudices performed by very upper class people. Berkoff used techniques in decadence such as: miming smoking and pouring champagne and making his own sound effects. He said that "like smoking, naturalism can damage your health."
In Metamorphosis he used ritualistic miming in the scene with the eating family, which was mirrored in the ritualistic beetle/boy character. As an insect, he moved with sharp motions, staying completely still save for the short and snappy movements.
Berkovian actors use techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions, and mime to explore further the ways in which Berkoff approaches exchanges between two characters. Berkoff said that it was important to see how he could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece.
Examples:
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