Steven Berkoff

Steven Berkoff is an English actor/director who trained at the Webber Douglas school of dramatic arts and the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, in which he trained in the art of physical theatre and mime. Berkoff is well known for his in your face dramatic styles that causes the audience to react. People describe this style as “It is the kind of theatre that inspires us to use superlatives, whether in praise or condemnation”. One of the dramatic styles used by Berkoff is a style of physical theatre called “Total Theatre”, which is the idea that all elements should be equally as important. Berkoff is also well known for his physicalisation which is best shown in “metamorphis” in which berkoff becomes the object. Also in Berkoffs plays he intends the actors to represent the characters rather than become them. In turn Berkoff also wants to convey emotion withing his characters rather than just thoughts. This can be done through the use of mime, movement and voice expression. The overall reason why i chose to perform East by Berkoff was to learn more about the way characters are represented and why the audience feels distanced from the play. Through the use of Berkoffs dramatic styles and vulgar scenes and characters. In the scene of East i am performing which is scene 4 we are shown the whole family eating breakfast. We can see that in this particular scene Berkoff is trying to disgust the audience in the way the actors are grotesquely eating their meal. We can perceive that berkoff is giving us an impression of what the worst type of families in the East End are like and grossly over exaggerateing them. By doing this Berkoff is already distancing the audience and showing them something alien. After the first impressions of the family the audience then learns of the meaningless rituals of the family. In which the mother and fathers life is dominated by whats on the telly. But these conversations seem to always lead to the father going into a rant about the communists and