Steven Berkoff is a phenomenon. Among the artists working in the theatre today he is probably the most theatrical - his special combination of speech, movement and spectacle is uniquely powerful. This first collection of his plays includes East, described by Berkoff as 'an outburst or revolt against the sloth of my youth and a desire to turn a welter of undirected passion and frustration into a positive form'. Also included in this collection are the plays West and Sink the Belgrano!
This is a collection of three history plays, each displaying the sparkling muscularity of language that marks Berkoff out as one of the foremost wordsmiths in the English language. Set in thirteenth-century England, Ritual in Blood looks at the persecution of the Jews. Messiah begins with the image of Christ on the cross and pits His humanity and transcendent goodness against the evil of those who would kill Him. Finally, Berkoff offers a sharp and accessible adaptation of Sophocles's Oedipus tragedy.
For ten years Berkoff has travelled all over the world - from Fiji to Acapulco - acting, directing and writing. This book is his diary of these trips Berkoff is the author of East, West, Sink the Belgrano , Decadence and I am Hamlet.
A World Elsewhere is Steven Berkoff’s bold attempt to describe his multifarious theatrical works. Berkoff outlines the methods that he uses, first of all as an actor, secondly as a playwright and thirdly as theatre director, as well as those subtle connections in between, when one discipline melds effortlessly into another. He examines the early impulses that generated his works and what drove him to give them form, as well as the challenges he faced when adapting the work of other authors. Berkoff discusses some of his most difficult, successful and unique creations, journeying through his long and varied career to examine how they were shaped by him, and how he was shaped by them. The sheer scale of this book offers a rare experience of an accomplished artist, combined with the honesty and insight of an autobiography, making this text a singular tool for teaching, inspiration and personal exploration. Suitable for anyone with an interest in Steven Berkoff and his illustrious career, A World Elsewhere is the part analysis and part confession of an artist whose work has been performed all over the world.
How a certain Jewish family mourns a dead patriarch. The term is 'sitting Shiva' (mourning for seven days), when friends and relatives commiserate, usually in the home of the deceased. As children, we always understood this to be 'sit and shiver', which also seemed most appropriate. While death has claimed the old man and triggered the usual inflated eulogies - 'how important a man becomes when they die' - it has also brought to the surface hidden anxieties and grievances, only exacerbated when a visitor shows up bearing strange news that threatens to tear the family apart. A Jewish black comedy in the Berkoff tradition. Sit and Shiver was first presented at the Odyssey Theater, Los Angeles, in March 2004. The European premiere was held at the New End Theatre, London, in association with Saw Productions, in May 2006.
Steven Berkoff is a phenomenon. Among the artists working in the theatre today he is probably the most theatrical - his special combination of speech, movement and spectacle is uniquely powerful. This first collection of his plays includes East, described by Berkoff as 'an outburst or revolt against the sloth of my youth and a desire to turn a welter of undirected passion and frustration into a positive form'. Also included in this collection are the plays West and Sink the Belgrano!
Hamlet and Ophelia express the infinite variety of their passion in a work which takes the form of an epistolary play in verse. Steven Berkoff's startlingly original drama charts the lovers' story beneath the surface of Shakespeare's play. With a muscularity of language tempered with tenderness, Berkoff's play is shot through with images of courtly love, sexual desire and intimations of future tragedy. The chill of the ending perfectly offsets the preceding violent heat in what is another unique piece of work from the individual talent that is Steven Berkoff. The Secret Love Life of Ophelia was first performed at the King's Head Theatre, London, on 25 June 2001.
Steven Berkoff is probably the most theatrical artist working in theatre today. This first collection of his plays is now available in the contemporary classics series.
He was born in London’s Jewish East End two years before the outbreak of WWII, when life for the Berkoff family was very much hand to mouth. They dodged the bombs when the Blitz started, moved home when theirs was destroyed, and joined the street celebrations when VE Day finally came. For the young Steven life was tough and always changing; his mother caring but his father was "a strange beast"—a frightening presence who often disappeared for days. Relief came when his mother took him to New York to live for a while in the Bronx, but upon returning to London he misbehaved at school, and as he got older entered into the street life of the times—playing pinball machines, casing the dance halls, stealing kisses (and more), joining the gangs that entered into vicious daily fights, and eventually ending up in a remand home for stealing a bike. Leaving school at 16, he drifted from job to job, mostly in men's shops, one of which led him to him to fall in with some out of work actors who introduced him to theater. With no qualifications he applied to drama school, auditioned, and was granted a scholarship. As he movingly ends this powerfully honest book, "I had arrived. I was there. . . . This is what I should do. This is what I should be. An Actor. The door closed and the lesson began.
What made Steven Berkoff? Born in the East End in 1937 and educated at Hackney Downs Grammar (Harold Pinter's old school), throughout his life as actor, director and playwright, Steven Berkoff has been variously described as exciting, controversial, thrilling, egocentric, electric and dynamic.Ranging freely between his childhood, his teenage years spent going 'up West', a formative year with family in the USA, his early days in theatre, this first collection of autobiographical writings from Steven Berkoff shows how he siphoned off and transformed those experiences for his plays, East and West and how his later experiences informed Greek. Berkoff's autobiography is essential reading for all those fascinated by his explosive dynamism and an inspiration to those wanting to enter the theatrical profession.
Franz Kafka has found his perfect modern interpreter in Steven Berkoff.' Financial TimesFocusing on rehearsals for the 1992 Mitsubishi Theater, Tokyo, production of his adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis, Steven Berkoff muses on the nine previous productions of the play over a twenty-three-year-span, starting with his own performance as Gregor Samsa in 1969 at the Round House, London, and taking in the productions in Los Angeles in 1982 with Brad Davis, 1986 at the Mermaid in London with Tim Roth, 1988 in Paris with Roman Polanski and 1989 in New York with Mikhail Baryshnikov.Meditations on 'Metamorphosis' dissects and illuminates Kafka's story and Berkoff's own stage adaptation, contrasting rehearsal techniques and performance styles between different cultures and sexes. A valuable document for anyone interested in Metamorphosis and all who relish the explosive dynamism of Steven Berkoff's work.
What goes through a man's mind when he is playing Hamlet? How does Shakespeare's best-known play actually work, from the inside? Steven Berkoff is an actor, playwright, and director with an extraordinary talent for conveying powerful ideas and emotions. His production of Hamlet, in which he took the title role, began in Edinburgh in 1979, went on to the Round House in London, and toured throughout Europe for the next two years. The company completed its final performance as guests of Jean-Louis Barrault at his Rond Point Theater, where the audience gave the production a tempestuous ovation. During the tour Berkoff kept a journal and recorded the workings of the play from the director/actor's point of view. On the basis of that diary Berkoff has created an intensely personal analysis of the play with a line-by-line examination of the text and the way he approached it in his production. His detailed observations show how his imagination covers a wide range of human experience--from love and death to the nature of marriage and the messianic fervor of Hamlet. I Am Hamlet not only reveals the mind of a fascinating actor and director at work, it is also a singular encounter with a part that "touches the complete alphabet of human experience" and that every actor feels he is born to play.
This collection of plays by Steven Berkoff is made up of three history plays, with themes as diverse as the persecution of the Jews, a battle between Christ and the forces of evil, and an adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus tragedy.
This is a collection of three history plays, each displaying the sparkling muscularity of language that marks Berkoff out as one of the foremost wordsmiths in the English language. Set in thirteenth-century England, Ritual in Blood looks at the persecution of the Jews. Messiah begins with the image of Christ on the cross and pits His humanity and transcendent goodness against the evil of those who would kill Him. Finally, Berkoff offers a sharp and accessible adaptation of Sophocles's Oedipus tragedy.
From the joys of a Wimbledon Champion to the vicious maiming of a young Indian woman. These poems will appeal to young, old and those who still have hope.
Steven Berkoff was asked to direct Shakespeare's Richard II in New York early 1994. It was a project he found fascinating: performing an Elizabethan play within the scrapers of Manhattan and the still rotting slums of the Lower East Side, between the steaming breath oozing out from the cracked pipes and the brutality of modern New York speak. New York became the backdrop and the energy centre which charged him each day and fed his inspiration. This book offers a wonderful insight into the many characters, challenges and places that were integral to the project and details how gradually the production took form. Served by a first-rate company that worked incredibly hard, the achievement was a critically acclaimed production and the fulfilment of a personal goal to direct the Bard. NEW YORK POST This morning I have joy to report - so let the trumpets sound and the canons roar! Last night at the Anspacher Auditorium of the Joseph Papp Public Theater, there opened a production of The Tragedy of Richard II which can hold its own with the world's best in Shakespearean stagings. NEW YORK SUNDAY TIMES The Tragedy of Richard II now being given an exceptionally stylish production by Steven Berkoff. Mr Berkoff's production, which, among many virtues, is so well and clearly spoken and so clean of dramatic line that it's accessible from start to finish... THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER NEW YORK - They'll be talking about this Richard II for years.
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