Berkoff
Who was he?
- Born in 1937 in London (currently 83)
- Actor, Playwright and Theatre director
- Partner: Clara Fisher
- His family is Jewish, with roots in Romania and Russia
- Berkoff attended Rain's Foundation Grammar school (1948–50),Hackney Downs School, the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts (1958), and L'Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq (1965)
- Kvetch (best comedy) - Evening Standard Theatre Award (1991)
- Total Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
- Shakespeare's Villains (best entertainment) - nominated for Society of London's Theatre's Laurence Olivier
- East (best ensemble work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) - 1999
- Shakespeare's Villains (best solo performance) - LA weekly Theatre Award (2000)
- Messiah (Scotsman Fringe First Award) - Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2000)
- Secret Love Life of Ophelia - Bank of Scotland Herald Angel (2001)
What sets Berkoff apart from theatre is his focus on non-naturalism, his attention on movement rather than voice. As an actor, director and playwright and general non-conformist, Berkoff wanted to shake naturalistic theatre and encourage experiment using the idea of Total Theatre. He believed that the only purpose of a script is to help minimalise and physicalise the story; stripping it down to the bare components. Steven Berkoff said that his career owes much to his training as a physical theatre practitioner, but perhaps equally, to his working class origins, which, he maintains, give him a different perspective to those around him in a predominantly middle class profession. The aim of Total Theatre is to create extreme moods to give the audience an overwhelming experience and to shock, amuse, scare, or amaze them. Total Theatre maintains that every aspect of theatre must have purpose: every movement, that is choreographed; to each line, that is learned perfectly; to each lighting effect, that is used to convey a mood or message; to each sound effect, that enhances the audience’s experience; to each prop that has a use.
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