A World Elsewhere

Steven Berkoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000731927
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

A World Elsewhere is Steven Berkoff's bold attempt to describe his multifarious theatrical works.

Berkoff outlines the methods that he uses, first of all as an actor, secondly as a playwright and thirdly as theatre director, as well as those subtle connections in between, when one discipline melds effortlessly into another. He examines the early impulses that generated his works and what drove him to give them form, as well as the challenges he faced when adapting the work of other authors. Berkoff discusses some of his most difficult, successful and unique creations, journeying through his long and varied career to examine how they were shaped by him, and how he was shaped by them. The sheer scale of this book offers a rare experience of an accomplished artist, combined with the honesty and insight of an autobiography, making this text a singular tool for teaching, inspiration and personal exploration.

Suitable for anyone with an interest in Steven Berkoff and his illustrious career, A World Elsewhere is the part analysis and part confession of an artist whose work has been performed all over the world.

1

In the Penal Colony

The Arts Lab, Drury Lane 1967

My very first production – when I read this frightening and brilliantly written tale I was sure that this would be my choice as the place whence to launch my directing and writing career. Most of the story is written in dialogue and so not too difficult to turn into a play. My eventual ambition was to stage Kafka’s masterpiece, the novella Metamorphosis, and this was to be a curtain raiser. Today that would be felt to be quite unnecessary, but, in those far-off times, anything less than two hours was deemed to be short-changing the audience.

Customers expected it. They wanted drama that would engage them in the first act, keep them guessing in the second and satisfy them in the third with a coup de théâtre! The time of a dynamic play in one or two acts, lasting, much like a film, just under ninety minutes, was yet to come.

I had the very strong ambition to stage something that was utterly different from the kitchen sink dross that was Britain’s current obsession.

I had next to no interest in the simple and somewhat dreary howls and moans of the class war.

I felt that too much theatre was becoming a mouthpiece for agitated playwrights to air their problems either with themselves or with society. I felt it was becoming a little tedious.

Kafka belonged to the world of imagination. I loved this strange and bizarre story and felt that there would be nothing on earth like it. This was my goal and I set to work.

Now, there are overwhelming and some daunting elements in the story. The central feature of the piece, if not the central character, is a machine. An extraordinary, barbaric machine designed to execute anyone working on the military base, where the play is set, for any offence deemed to lower the standards of military discipline. Its function is as bizarre and convoluted as the imaginative mind of Kafka himself. The machine punishes the ‘sentenced’ offender by the most extraordinary method that has ever been devised. The prisoner is strapped into the machine. The lid is closed and he waits. Very slowly and gradually needles puncture the man’s flesh, water jets clear the blood and debris away leaving the back clear. Clear as a sheet of parchment, for this is exactly the function of the demonic contraption. Whilst the poor prisoner suffers the pain of the stabbing needle after some time, he begins to realise that there seems to be some form of logic to the incessant piercing of his flesh by the needles.

The needles are actually writing out the crime for which he has been punished! They are in fact writing out his ‘sentence’, the sentence in this case being all too literal. Now the prisoner, not yet being dead, even though on the brink and even in the dire situation he is in, struggles to interpret what these repetitious movements of the needles mean. A crowd of spectators have been invited to witness this gruesome execution, the highlight of which, unbeknown to the victim at this stage, is the moment of realisation. This is what everybody keenly awaits, when the prisoner gradually reads his sentence in the painful tattoos raining down upon his back. For the audience it is a most exciting moment and even perceived by many of them as a spiritual one. According to the officer who is relating the story, the tortured victim suddenly ‘sees’ the writing on his back. His expression is one of a terrible understanding as he then expires. This, for the protagonist of the story, is an almost holy event.

There are just four people in the cast. The protagonist is a fanatical officer, perhaps past his prime, who believes in the ‘old way’. The machine has fallen out of favour in recent years and is now regarded as a rather outdated anachronism. It is no longer serviced or even repaired and is being allowed to gradually fade out of existence. However, the old-school officer is desperate to retain it for the values and tradition that it represents. He is trying very hard to persuade the ‘explorer’ who just happens to be on a scientific visit to the island to attend a real execution. The explorer is reluctant to recommend its continued use to the commandant even after much persuasion. The officer was hoping that the beauty and elegance of the execution might persuade him to put in a good word to the powers that be. He might even put the prisoner in the machine for one final magnificent demonstration.

The machine, having not been serviced for some time, lets the commandant down and the demo is flawed and comes to a stop. The officer is distressed that his carefully planned exhibition has not only failed miserably but has also humiliated him beyond redress. In bitter frustration he retunes the machine as best he can, then rips his uniform off and climbs into the monstrous contraption. He instructs his brutish assistant to fasten all the clamps and turn on the switch. This time the machine miraculously springs into action. It impresses for a moment or two but soon enough it shudders and breaks down. The officer, though, is thoroughly dead. The explorer completes his notes. The play ends.

Not only is this a most bizarre play, it is also very skilfully written and engages the audience from the beginning to the final shocking and climatic end. All sorts of interpretations are possible; although it was written well over a decade before Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933, one can certainly sniff out the fumes of the oncoming order. The witches stew is bubbling in the pot and Kafka is naturally swift to detect it.

I badly wanted to do this play. The role of the derelict officer craving the good old days was a gift for an actor. It is passionate, nostalgic, lyrical, absurd and insane. But the real star of the play must be the infernal machine. It seemed like an impossible task to find someone to make such a complex piece, unless you had a budget for a film. However, as luck would have it, I had the great fortune to be courting a young lady named Alison Minto, whose rare intelligence and culture naturally attracted some very smart dudes around her. One of whom was a young fledgling architect called Alistair Merry. Alistair, just down from Oxford, was not only an architect but also a very talented carpenter and designer. He agreed to make it for me and he did, and what he built was quite incredible.

Kafka describes his horrific ‘torture machine’ almost lovingly, as the protagonist proudly guides his visitor into its unpalatable functions. ‘Both “The Bed” and “The Designer” have an electric battery each – As soon as the man is strapped down, The Bed is set in motion – It quivers in minute, very rapid vibrations from side to side and up and down – The needles barely touch the skin, but once the contact is made, the steel ribbon stiffens into a rigid band – Then, the long needle does the writing and the short needle sprays a jet of water to wash away the blood … etc.’

Alistair Merry constructed a formidable interpretation of this machine. To my mind, it was a masterpiece, and as a skilled carpenter he constructed the machine in two main parts. The basic coffin-shaped Bed was beautifully made out of planed wood with slats for the ‘prisoner’ to lie on. That hinged to the top half, which had, embedded in its underside, row upon row of sharp, fine nails. Also, from this ran a series of vein-like wires down into The Bed, from which emerged transparent tubes to drain the blood. Holding the whole contraption in place were four large, steel poles, which helped to keep it stable while it vibrated. The stage management would do the rest, adding flashing light effects to complete the macabre illusion of the torture machine. It was most effective – a kind of Heath Robinson fantasy.

Now in Drury Lane, just off Covent Garden, was the aptly named The Arts Laboratory run by American maverick Jim Haynes. One day I happened to stroll in to this strange large studio and spoke to Mr Haynes. I left a script. He asked me when I would like to see it being performed. I hadn’t a clue. But just to seem vaguely confident in my plans I suggested three months hence. He agreed to that even before reading the script and said he would get back to me.

Jim Haynes was an original on many different fronts and, having established the first fringe theatre in Edinburgh, called The Traverse, thought he’d do the same in London. The idea of Kafka, and his tale of torture and horror, was obviously ‘catnip’ to his alert entrepreneurial sense. A month later I looked in to get the feel of the place and there Jim was sitting at the same front desk where he had been a month earlier. He greeted me by drawing my attention to the wall on the left as you walked in. On the wall was a poster for In the Penal Colony announcing gloriously the premiere of the Kafka/Berkoff piece. It looked hand-done. Now, since somebody had gone to so much trouble to put this poster together I could no longer prevaricate. I had to do it.

Since this was my very first production and meant eventually to be a curtain raiser, the style was brutally simple. There were four in the cast, myself as the Officer, an Explorer, the Prisoner chained, sitting quietly and resigned and my thuggish Attendant.

My Attendant, it was felt, should welcome the audience as they come in with a blow torch in one hand that he had been using for a few minor repairs. The lighting was low and the Officer just waited casually leaning against the wall waiting for the spectators for the execution. The Explorer dressed in tropical fatigues is sitting in a chair making notes. When the Officer decides to make himself an example to prove the value of his wondrous machine, he strips down to his underwear. The climax at the end when the Machine finally shudders and dies should be suitably horrifying. Blood is seeping out of the machine as the Officer breathes his last. The machine has clumsily performed its last execution.

I had a first rate and loyal cast. Dino Shafeek was the condemned man. I had first met him at the YMCA when I would play handball most days. Asher Tsarfati, an Israeli actor whom I taught at drama school and who became a close friend, played the Attendant. Although he had no lines, he was very expressive and a character to whom the Officer could address much of his dialogue, especially when the Officer becomes intensely lachrymose and makes his final and desperate plea to the audience for understanding and respecting the ‘ancient’ traditions. And Christopher Hayden, a young actor whom I had auditioned, played the Explorer.

Dino Shafeek, a Bangladeshi actor, was well-built and possessed a strong muscular body, and there was a gentleness about him. He was struggling to find acting work and was generally cast as a low-grade native or servant when ‘foreign or oriental types’ were required. He was happy to do a play on stage, even though he did not utter a word, but sat there calmly awaiting his execution like a benign Indian deity.

Asher Tsarfati, a very powerfully built young man, said he relished my classes, since the school at that time was doing the kind of ‘drinks table’ plays that could hardly connect with his robust spirit. Although he had nothing to say in the piece, he was a very powerful presence. I addressed most of my passionate confessions to him as my ally. He stayed with me for the whole period, including the time when I mounted Metamorphosis. When he returned to Israel he swiftly rose in the ranks to become one of Israel’s greatest actors.

Christopher Hayden as the explorer was a perfect foil to the arrogant, self-righteous officer. His elegant, even refined, looks were so apt for his role as my interrogator. I enjoyed working with him and we all sank into our roles.

Figure 1.1In the Penal Colony. L–R: George Little, Steven Berkoff.

So, two months later we opened my very first professional production in London. Nobody could have been more proud and the play, although only forty minutes long, was a resounding success. Eventually it was joined in a double bill by the wonderful dance and mime artist Tutte Lemkow, who had been performing his brilliant interpretation of Kafka’s even more bizarre tale ‘A Report to an Academy’. It concerned an ape giving his lectures on how he gradually became human. So now it was a perfect Kafka double-bill.

It was a most exciting beginning and I have never forgotten it. Sadly The Arts Laboratory is no longer there.

My two supporting actors I culled from the teaming mass of London’s unemployed thespians. Dino, playing the hapless native about to be executed, I had become friends with in London’s YMCA, a much-favoured gathering place for actors where we would play competitive games of handball or squash, or work out with weights. There is, or grows, a wonderful camaraderie between men in a gym. We sweated together, played together, laughed together and became gym friends … rarely meeting outside or even curious about each other’s past or background. We were just men in the YMCA. Dino Shafeek as ‘The Prisoner’ was about to be executed, but, in the story’s bizarre plot, that fact is not revealed to the condemned man. He learns it as the harrow in which he is placed face down slowly pierces his body. Dino’s soft, dark, Indian face so perfectly captured the queries racing through his mind. Christopher, called ‘The Explorer’ in the story, perfectly exemplified the cool, reticent and guarded observer. Both were excellent in their respective roles.

2

Metamorphosis

The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm 1969

This intriguing and horrid tale has fascinated me for many years. This had to be theatre and was to be my second production.

It had to be theatre because to my mind it demanded every ounce of imagination to bring it to life. The horrific tale of a human being trapped inside the body of an insect is a tale one would think impossible to stage. This of course means I would have to be far more creative to suggest the creature. Theatre allows you to do this – a simple gesture as the insect, its rhythm, its stillness, its sudden activity, demands that the audience uses its imagination. Thus they become participants in the ritual. This can only be achieved live on stage.

It’s almost an involuntary act from the audience, the brain wishes to make sense and complete the story. Give the smallest gesture and the brain of the audience is compelled to fill in the rest.

Still naive in the methods of staging theatre, I had adapted it without the necessity of seeing the protagonist, the Beetle/Gregor. I just hadn’t imagined how one could possibly put the insect on stage. However, one day I noticed that another company was actually showing their production of Metamorphosis in Oxford. I believe it was a young student group. Frankly I was astounded by what I saw! They had boldly and inventively put the Beetle centre stage. They had used the simple device of a box behind which crouched the actor, his arms crossed over each other resting on the box’s surface somehow serving as an image or template for the insect. Brilliant, simple and so effective. I went home deciding to put my Beetle centre stage, but I would not use the box effect. I would use the whole body. John Abulafia was the creator by whom I was inspired. The end result bore little resemblance to his own inspired production. My creature moved, climbed the walls and actually hung from the ceiling. But the germ of it was his.

I had prevaricated for years, but now I was determined to do it. I had found a ‘key’. As usual, indecision and fear fought each other for ascendency. Could I do it, direct it and play Gregor Samsa? I was determined. I had to make a decision and of course it was always down to me. The few theatres I had written to were too rear-guard and conventional to even consider it. I did manage to raise a small amount of cash from a London film producer, John Heyman, famous for many of the better film efforts of the British screen. I was introduc...