Berkoff
Berkoff was an actor, director, and writer born on the 3rd of august 1937 from Stepney London. He was born Leslie Steven Berks into a Romanian Jewish background. He was influenced by directors and writers such as Brecht, Artaud, Lecoq, and Kabuki Theatre.
Berkoff training
Acting: Webber Douglas Academy in London
Movement: Laban school of Dance
Theatre: Ecole Internationale de Theatre de Jaques Lecoq in Paris
work- mime and physical theatre practitioner at Webber Douglas. formed the London Theatre group in 1968 and proceeded to write direct and perform with his own company.
he practiced: Non-naturalism, Non-conformist, Experimentation, Marxist, Political themes, and attention on movement rather than voice.
Berkoff was heavily influenced by two main schools of theatre:
Greek theatre- in his plays, Berkoff used exaggerated physical story telling influenced by the Greek chorus, Characters use poetic language such as bouncers.
Kabuki Theatre- A form of Japanese theatre. The key concept is Jo-ha-kyo, which is a concept of modulation and movement applied in a wide variety of traditional Japanese arts. Roughly translated to "beginning, break, rapid", it essentially means that all actions or efforts should begin slowly, speed up, and then end swiftly.
Set Design:
lighting - often Berkoff's set included very minimalistic lighting in order to help focus the audience on certain characters, for example in metamorphosis there are moments when the light focuses on Gregor in order to draw the audiences attention towards him
set - always very minimalistic with the staging often having one prop positioned centre stage such as a table or sofa. this prop is usually where a lot of movements and actions centre around.
What is Berkovian Theatre?
Berkovian theater is a theatrical style developed by English actor, playwright, and director Steven Berkoff that emphasizes physical theater, total theater, and expressionism
Berkovian theatre focuses on the following techniques:
Physicality, or Total Theatre, Berkoff's work focused on characters telling stories through their physical abilities instead of using props.
Exaggeration, Berkoff's work often featured exaggerated mime, vocal and physical techniques.
He also used stylized movements and gestured influenced from Brecht's acting and Kabuki's "mie"
His pieces often included direct address, asides and breaking the fourth wall
Berkoff's pieces reject contemporary realism.
Berkoff's work:
East (1975) -