Research on Berkoff

YOUTUBE PLAYLISTS

• Interviews 
• Theatre Productions 
• Acting On Screen

Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance 
(links with Grotowski)

ARTICLES
Writing for The Independent on Metamorphosis

ACTORS HE ADMIRES (which he says this generation knows nothing of):

• John Gielgud
• Trevor Howard 
• Edmund Kean (Britannica entry)

ON PHYSICAL THEATRE
From BBC GSCE Bitesize:

Physical theatre can also be used in the way director, Steven Berkoff used it in The Trial, to provide the scene, whether this is furniture for a room or a busy street. The use of people to create everything allows great opportunities for dynamic impact. In The Trial, it was the cast, very simple frames and a rope on an empty performance area that created the whole staging.

From his website: 

Though uniquely his own, Berkoff's production style descends from the tradition of presentational directors

Jacques Copeau [Ref 3-1]	Étienne Decroux [Ref 3-2]	Jean-Louis Barrault	Jaques Le Coq [Ref 3-3]

This heritage rejected twentieth century realism, choosing blatant theatricality over subtle nuance. Such directors bridged the divide between modernism and what was to become post-modernism, evolving into, what Annette Lust calls post-modern mime. She cites Berkoff's mentor Jaques Le Coq as key to this development and describes chief characteristics of "post-modern mime" in her book From Greek Mimes to Marcel Marceau and Beyond (2000). Lust describes sixteen specific traits; Berkoff's work fits every one of her descriptions, including

There is a recycling or new use of existing forms no longer regarded as separate arts. For example, the frequent crossbreeding with other art forms -- such as dance, music, performance art, circus, puppetry, film, and pictorial art -- creates an artistic pluralism that is not necessarily integrated but offers a new vitality.(111)

In 1973, Berkoff and The London Theatre Group declared their own mission statement, which places them within Lust's parameters: 

To express drama in the most vital way imaginable; to perform at the height of one’s powers with all available means. That is, through the spoken word, gesture, mime and music. Sometimes the emphasis on one, sometimes on the other. (quoted in Elder 39)