Steven Berkoff

Franz Kafka

Three Theatre Adaptations from Franz Kafka

The Trial ; Metamorphosis ; In the Penal Colony

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!

Plays One

DramaOnline

What happens when an ordinary gathering is peeled back to expose the fears and insecurities beneath? Frank and Donna are having dinner with her mother-in-law and friends George and Hal, but under the surface there lie anxieties and desires waiting to be unleashed. In 'Kvetch' Steven Berkoff examines the tension and frustration seething under the surface of domesticity in an American marriage that has run out of steam. A play that explores the nature of neurosis, but also personal and cultural identity, 'Kvetch' was named London's Evening Standard comedy of the year in 1991, having premiered at the Odyssey Theatre, Los Angeles, in March 1986.

Kvetch

David and Goliath

Requiem for Ground Zero

The Journals of a Strolling Player

Shopping in the Santa Monica Mall

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."

Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent

Agamemnon ; The Fall of the House of Usher

East/West/Greek

Decadence and Other Plays

Written with characteristic Berkoff flair and an understanding of the subtle power and violence of the English language, this second collection of his plays includes Decadence, described by the Guardian as being 'enthused with Berkoff's violent, imagist, vivid wordplay'. The collection also includes Kvetch, Acapulco, Harry's Christmas, Brighton Beach Scumbags, Dahling You Were Marvellous, Dog and Actor, and is introduced by the author.

Decadence; Kvetch; Acapulco; Harry's Christmas; Brighton Beach Scumbags; Dahling You Were Marvelous; Dog; Actor

Steven Berkoff Plays 2

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.

Poems for the Working Class

Geoffrey Dyson

d'après Edgar Allan Poe

La chute de la maison Usher

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.

The Secret Love Life of Ophelia

Harry is a dedicated actor, often out of work, rejected and desperate for opportunities to practise his art. Brief moments of success only serve to increase his thirst for fulfilment. In these moving, sometimes harrowing short stories Steven Berkoff tears the skin off the acting profession to reveal the raw, bleeding reality of the actor’s everyday life.

Tales of an Actor

Graft

'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.

Meditations on Metamorphosis

East

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

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