What is Steven Berkoff style?

‘ Version 1 3 Copyright © OCR 2015 Page 4 Berkoff tells stories in a poetic and heightened way, both vocally and physically using minimal set and a non- naturalistic style with lighting and music. Characters use a mix of poetic language, sometimes Shakespearean, often vulgar and muscular, almost physical.

Artaudian Techniques Visual Poetry – movement, gesture and dance instead of word to communicate; Used music, sound effects – stylised movement – emotional impact.

The manipulation of sound through language is a central element of Berkoff’s acting style, but so is the creation of sound effects. Actors might create literal sounds like missiles exploding, or, environmental sound effects like winds blowing through trees.

• The narration needs to be told in a montage style.
• Techniques to break down the fourth wall, making the audience directly conscious of the fact that they are watching a play.
• Use of a narrator. …
• Use of songs or music. …
• Use of technology. …
• Use of signs.

Berkoff used masks/make-up to create eerie effects for The Fall of the House of Usher to emphasize the gaunt, skeletal features of the Ushers; his techniques walk a fine line between “special effect” and masks.

Berkoff had an unhappy childhood ” not getting anything I wanted was becoming awfully familiar” (from Delinquent). His relation with his father was very strained “not having a caring or loving Dad didn’t help” (Delinquent p104).

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was a French dramatist, playwright, poet, actor and theoretician. He advocated an experimental theatre focusing on movement, gesture, dance and signals instead of relying primarily on text as a means of communication.

Drama in a realistic style can include dramatic action that looks like… Drama in a non-realistic style can include dramatic action that looks like… … Song and dance: Singing and dancing can help to tell stories and create dramatic meaning.

He believed gesture and movement to be more powerful than text. Sound and lighting could also be used as tools of sensory disruption. The audience, he argued, should be placed at the centre of a piece of performance. Theatre should be an act of ‘organised anarchy’.

In his adaptation of Coriolanus, Berkoff uses mime to show the attack on the gates of Rome that is referred to in the script but not the play. Language does not have to be included in the performance to be shown. … Berkoff often left rejected ensemble acting in favour of one or two-man shows.

Kabuki switched to adult male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s. Adult male actors, however, continued to play both female and male characters, and kabuki retained its popularity, remaining a key aspect of the Edo period urban life-style.

A style or genre of drama characterized by realism and an absence of theatrical devices. Epic theatre is particularly associated with Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956).

epic theatre, German episches Theater, form of didactic drama presenting a series of loosely connected scenes that avoid illusion and often interrupt the story line to address the audience directly with analysis, argument, or documentation.

The term “epic theatre” comes from Erwin Piscator who coined it during his first year as director of Berlin’s Volksbühne (1924–27). … Near the end of his career, Brecht preferred the term “dialectical theatre” to describe the kind of theatre he pioneered.

The German playwright Brecht left Germany when Hitler came to power. His plays show his anti-fascist stance, and were also innovative, in particular his Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) which Berkoff uses in East where actors destroy naturalism by, for example, addressing to the audience.

Steven Berkoff’s groundbreaking adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial tells the story of Joseph K., a man accused of a crime which is never revealed to him. Kafka’s bleak and nightmarish world is once again brought to life by Berkoff’s distinct choreography, stark set design and use of mime. …

DV8 are well known for using Physical theatre to explore complex aspects of human relationships and social or cultural issues. In DV8’s production, Can We Talk About This? the director and performers used Physical theatre to express extremely complicated and delicate political and social issues.

Berkoff has adapted a number of other classic works for the stage, including Kafka’s. He is also the author of many original plays, including East, first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1975 (revived at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in 1999), Decadence (1982), Greek (1982) and West (1985).

A theatre of cruelty play must contain “physical” and “objective” elements capable of acting upon everybody’s sensibilities: screams, apparitions, shock effects, magic, ritual, visual beauty, including harmony of movement and color.

When Boal was a Vereador (city councilman) in Rio de Janeiro, he created a new form of theatre called “legislative theatre” to give his voters the opportunity to voice their opinions. The objective is to open up a dialogue between citizens and institutional entities so that there is a flow of power between both groups.

Antecedents of farce are found in ancient Greek and Roman theatre, both in the comedies of Aristophanes and Plautus and in the popular native Italian fabula Atellana, entertainments in which the actors played stock character types—such as glutton, graybeard, and clown—who were caught in exaggerated situations.

Work that does not depict anything from the real world (figures, landscapes, animals, etc.) is called nonrepresentational. Nonrepresentational art may simply depict shapes, colors, lines, etc., but may also express things that are not visible– emotions or feelings for example.

Characters speak in naturalistic, authentic dialogue without verse or poetic stylings, and acting is meant to emulate human behaviour in real life. … Part of a broader artistic movement, it includes Naturalism and Socialist realism.

Characters. The characters in non-realistic theatre portray lost souls drifting through an incomprehensible world. … Though the character’s thoughts and actions are almost nonsensical, they always have something to say, or a message to convey.

Similar to the broader movement of Expressionism in the arts, Expressionist theatre utilized theatrical elements and scenery with exaggeration and distortion to deliver strong feelings and ideas to audiences.

Artaud died of cancer on March 4, 1948, in a rest home near Paris. Unlike his fellow theoretician of the drama, Bertolt Brecht, whose plays have been widely honored and frequently performed, Artaud had no success at all with his endeavors in drama, poetry, or fiction. His reputation rests entirely on his critical work.

Aristotle was the first, and is perhaps the greatest, theatre critic.

Berkoff did not invent total theatre! However, after studying drama and mime in London and Paris, he drew on his own experiences as a performer to create theatre that demonstrated a full and complete immersion of the actor in the rehearsal and performance process…

Frantic Assembly was formed by students of Swansea University in 1994. None of the three studied drama, but were inspired by theatre and wanted to create their own unique company. … In 2016, Frantic Assembly collaborated with State Theatre South Australia and Andrew Bovell to create Things I Know To Be True.

Steven Berkoff was directly inspired by a number of writers- their works of fiction he aspired to bring to the theatrical scene in an original way. These include: Franz Kafka, Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare and Sophocles. His own work, alongside his adaptations, feature elements of other authors styles.

The play East is East, first performed in 1996 and adapted as a film in 1999, explores the lives of a Pakistani immigrant, his British wife and their children in 1970s Salford.

All-male casts became the norm after 1629, when women were banned from appearing in kabuki due to the prevalent prostitution of actresses and violent quarrels among patrons for the actresses’ favors. … In 1642, onnagata roles were forbidden, resulting in plays that featured only male characters.

Kimono is mainly used as a costume for Kabuki, a performing art that grew up in the Edo period. In addition to kimonos such as yukata and hanten that are worn even today, as samurai costumes, a set of hakama and jacket called kamishimo, sometimes reminiscent of a fantasy existence.

Kabuki, traditional Japanese popular drama with singing and dancing performed in a highly stylized manner. … In modern Japanese, the word is written with three characters: ka, signifying “song”; bu, “dance”; and ki, “skill.”

Why is Brecht so important? Bertolt Brecht was a theatre practitioner. He made and shaped theatre in a way that had a huge impact upon its development. … He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audiences at that time “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”.

The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. The origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus.

Iron Eyes Cody (born Espera Oscar de Corti, April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an American actor of Italian descent who portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood films, famously as Chief Iron Eyes in Bob Hope’s The Paleface (1948).