STEVEN BERKOFF (1937 - )
| Nationality: | British |
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Plays by Steven Berkoff
Acapulco |
| 1st Produced: | Los Angeles | 1986 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1986 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Acapulco rolls off the tip of the tongue and sounds like an exotic Mexican dish; mysterious, hot and desirable. I stayed in a hotel on the beach and watched the toilet paper float in shreds since the hurricane had tossed the resort into a giant sordid milk shake and everything was floating out there. Only the Mexicans swam while the white tourists lay around the hotel pools roasting themselves or getting drunk on tequila in the bar. I was there to act Sylvester Stallone's Nemesis in Rambo Two. His mission in the film was to investigate missing POWs. The actors playing the POWs sat in the bar each night and recounted their story of the day. They were small part players with the grand ambitions of life and each event that encompassed their world or touched them was the subject of much analysis. I waited for my moment of triumph in the film but it was not to be. It was a sordid, boring affair with long hours eaten away with ennui watching the endless set-ups being prepared. | |||||
Actor |
| 1st Produced: | 1996 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Short Play | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | consisting of 14 short telephone conversations. | |||||
| Synopsis: | I was, on the recommendation of my friend John Joyce, looking for material for a one-man show. One doodles as the information bubbles away in the unconscious and suddenly there is an eruption which seems to be feeding from a deep current of energy within. Years of struggle, unemployment, auditions, begging letters, agents, directors who didn't re-employ, self-loathing, disappointment, lack of courage, self-worth, self-pity leading to paranoia, neurosis etc. - this is the life of an actor as he tries not only to express the best part of himself but is condemned or rejected as part of his daily life. It is a harrowing profession while you are in the pleading position. So these thoughts store themselves in what seem small compartments in your mind, festering away like a compost heap and suddenly there is a break in the soil. I was partly inspired by a Marcel Marceau sketch where he walks apparently on the spot forever and the world passes him by. | |||||
Agamemnon |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1971 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London, 1977 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | Large Cast | |||||
| Notes: | Original Playwright - Aeschylus | |||||
| Synopsis: | Agamemnon is about energy of a different kind, but overlaps with my play East. It is filtered through my own impression of Greece and is rooted more in the elements of landscape and sea.. It is also about heat and battle, fatigue, the marathon and the obscenity of modern and future wars. Naturally it is about the body and its pleasures and pains. I followed Aeschylus but chose to take my own route from time to time. Events smudge into each other and I have used from the Feast of Atreus the ghastly origins of the curse. This is a suitable horrific beginning, though horror was not what I wanted but a revelation of the crime. I described it as if it had happened to me.The final text evolved after a long workshop series during which the actors turned themselves into athletes, soldiers, horses and chorus. The text was chanted, spoken, sung, and simply acted, l am really grateful to two actors (Wolf Kahler and Barry Philips) who started the first day (sometime in April 1973) and finished with me on the 21st August. | |||||
Berkoff's Women |
| 1st Produced: | New Ambassadors, London | 2001 | ||||
| Company: | In association with Spoke Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Devised | Piece | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | performed by Linda Marlowe | |||||
| Synopsis: | compilation of some of the most rewarding, exciting moments of Berkoff's female roles, featuring excerpts from "Decadence", "Greek", "East", "Agamemnon", "Sturm Und Drang", plus a newly dramatised story "From My Point of View. | |||||
Blood Accusation Charge, the |
| 1st Produced: | Unproduced | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Jewish Ritual Murder | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | The myth of a Lincoln story set in 1920 | |||||
Bow of Ulysees, The |
| 1st Produced: | Rosemary Branch, London | 2001 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | Sequel to Lunch | |||||
| Synopsis: | Like James Joyce's Finnegans Wake the play is cyclical as it states at the end of the text: fading out as the story continues forever | |||||
Brighton Beach Scumbags |
| 1st Produced: | 1994 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | I was walking along the Brighton promenade one weekend afternoon when I heard a rather corpulent lady screeching at a couple of heads that peeked over the deckchairs facing the sea, 'WHAT D'YA WANT ON YOUR BLEEDIN' HUMBURGERS?'. . . It was the primitive battle-cry of Dagenham or Romford, it curdled the air with its reek of deep loathing, frustration and hatred. The sea draws all to its comforting hypnotic rolling surf and to the memories of childhood and innocence and a belief that all will be well at the bland soothing coast with its aura of freedom from toil and possibility of fun. The contrast and disappointment creates a kind of dumb fury that things are not always what you hope they will be. So these two couples embark on Brighton beach with their dreams of the past competing with the reality of the present. They are British archetypes representing a programmed beast that at heart is still innocent in its beliefs but has been corroded by the deadening effects of a rotten sub-culture, cheap tabloids | |||||
Dahling You Were Marvellous |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | TV Play | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | Large Cast | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | I tried to write a TV play set in a watering hole. that caters for the theatrical chattering set. I modelled it on Orso's, a popular and very good London restaurant. It follows an evening after a first night at the theatre and it was an attempt to parody those precious dahlings and those utterly self-important creatures whose lives desperately depend on the outside world to give them form and shape, adulation and importance, having very little substance of their own. They float in an ether of seriousness that they believe wafts from their every utterance but they are well-meaning in their theatre babble. It was very tempting to parody certain figures and the fun is trying to identify who they might be. Their lives are demarcated by the slogans posing as wisdom which they emit and the narcissism which is their philosophy. I have not hesitated to use myself in the rogue's gallery of frauds since one easily slides along the muddy road from time to time and it can be difficult to extricate oneself. | |||||
Decadence |
| 1st Produced: | 1981 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London, 1982 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | published privately by Berkoff 1981 | |||||
| Synopsis: | Decadence is a study of the ruling classes or upper classes, so called by virtue of the strangulated vowel tones rather than any real achievement. The voice is caught in the back of the throat and squashed so as to release as little emotion as possible, Consonants are hard and biting, since emotion is carried on the vowel. The upper class slur the vowel or produce a glottal stop, which by closing down of the glottis creates an impure vowel - as in 'hice' for 'house'. They move in awkward rapid gestures or quick jerks and sometimes speak at rapid speeds to avoid appearing to have any feeling for what they say. They achieve pleasure very often in direct relation to the pain they cause in achieving it. Particularly in causing intolerable suffering to achieve exquisite pates, boiling lobsters alive with other crustaceans and hunting down defenseless animals to give them (the hunters) a sense of purpose on Sundays. Creating the play was a desire to let loose the fantasies that inspired unbridled indulgence. | |||||
Dog |
| 1st Produced: | 1996 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Short Play | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | aka Pitbull | |||||
| Synopsis: | A day in the life of yet another strange beast whose energy still attracts one to define and examine. A man with his dog, but a pitbull, one of those creatures I had been reading about, or, should I say, had forced down my gullet as ravage after ravage appeared in the papers as the beasts tore into innocent young flesh. It seemed to go with the British low-class yob culture more prevalent in the Thatcher years as class-division widened and the social fabric decayed. It went with the pub, obsessive drunkenness, football and xenophobia. So this is a comedy of manners if you like, performed by a sirnple direct, strong, unconfused guardian of British morality. The dog merely amplifies the insane and undirected energy of its owner. Curiously, his beliefs are not vague or confused but are held with dedication and conviction which makes him in a way repulsively ATTRACTIVE. | |||||
Dream of a Ridiculous Man, The |
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
East |
| 1st Produced: | 1975 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London, 1977 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | elegy for London's East End and its energetic waste | |||||
| Synopsis: | East was written to exorcise certain demons struggling within me to escape. East takes place within my personal memory and experience and is less a biographical text than an outburst of revolt against the sloth of my youth and a desire to turn a welter of undirected passion and frustration into a positive form. I wanted to liberate that time squandered and sometimes enjoyed into a testament to youth and energy. It is a scream or a shout of pain. It is revolt. There is no holding back or reserve in the east end of youth as I remember. . . you lived for the moment and vitally held it. . . you said what you thought and did what you felt. If something bothered you, you let it out as strongly as you could, as if the outburst could curse and therefore purge what ever it was that caused it. One strutted and posed down the Lyceum Strand, the Mecca of our world, performed a series of rituals that let people know who and what you were, and you would fight to the death to defend that particular life style that was your own. | |||||
Fall Of The House Of Usher, The |
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh | 1974 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London, 1977 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | Short Story by Edgar Allan Poe | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Graft |
| 1st Produced: | 2001 | |||||
| Company: | Vital Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | from the book by Stephen Berkoff | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Greek |
| 1st Produced: | Arts Theatre, London | 1980 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Calder & Boyers, London, 1982 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | published privately by Berkoff 1980 | |||||
| Synopsis: | Greek came to me via Sophocles, trickling its way down the millennia until it reached the unimaginable wastelands of Tufnell Park - a land more fantasised than real, being an amalgam of the deadening war zones that some areas of London had become. Tufnell Park was just a word to play with - like our low comedians play with the sound of East Cheam for example - so no real offence to the inhabitants. In my eyes, Britain seemed to have become a gradually decaying island, preyed upon by the wandering hordes who saw no future for themselves in a society which had few ideals or messages to offer them. The violence that streamed through the streets, like an all-pervading effluence, the hideous Saturday night fever as the pubs belched out their dreary occupants, the killing and maiming at public sports, plus the casual slaughtering of political opponents in Northern Ireland, bespoke a society in which an emotional plague had taken root. | |||||
Harry's Christmas |
| 1st Produced: | 1985 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1985 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Solo | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | There are many people for whom Christmas comes attended by the terrors of isolation, loneliness and enforced camaraderie. For the sociable it is a time for the mad scramble to organize as many encounters as possible lest we drop points in the stakes of popularity. With the innate laziness which has become part of the British heritage Christmas now seems to go on endlessly, engulfing New Year and more monstrous clambering on to the wagon of joyless mirth. Christmas was never a festival I would particularly look forward to and those without families, separated, bereaved or just congenitally introverted find the spotlight of Christmas exposes a false sense of worth or an exaggerated sense of worthlessness as the meagre cards are counted. Harry is one of those whom the buffets of the world has left stranded on a barren shore and he is dealing with it for the last time. But it is an amalgam of many of us. I played this play at the Donmar Theatre in 1985/6 and no play I have done received so many responses from people. | |||||
Hell |
| 1st Produced: | 1993 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Tale | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
House Of Usher, The |
| 1st Produced: | Hamstead Theatre Club, London | 1974 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Man changes into the house he has inhabited | |||||
In Flagranti |
| 1st Produced: | 1974 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Prose Style | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Man and woman meet in park, hate and then love. Strong textual imagery, beginning of Berkoff prose style | |||||
In The Penal Colony |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1968 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Three Theatre Adaptations from Franz Kafka", Amber Lane, Oxford, 1988 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | story by Kafka, aka The Penal Settlement | |||||
| Synopsis: | An explorer (the outsider) is given a demonstration of a torture instrument by the officer. The prisoner, who cannot speak their language, watches on as the officer describes with pride the instrument that he and the former Commandant developed. | |||||
Judgement, The, Knock at the Manor Gate, The Bucket Rider |
| 1st Produced: | Falmer, Surrey | 1972 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | story by Kafka | |||||
| Synopsis: | Berkoff does staged reading of Kafka´s works such as The Judgement and very short writings such as Knock at the Manor Gate. Originally a collection of Kafka´s minor writings including The Bucket Rider were performed together as a prologue to Metamorphosis. | |||||
Kvetch |
| 1st Produced: | Odyssey Theatre, Los Angeles | 1986 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1986 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | American Play About Anxiety | - | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | We all live under the shadow of the bomb - cancer - carcinogens - illness - unemployment - impotence - fear of fear - blacks whites - police - rates - income tax - parking tickets - forgetting our lines - losing money - making too much money - losing hair getting fat - getting ugly - being stupid - being unwitty - being shy - being foolish - worry about which stereo speakers - how to fix a car - a bike - learning the piano - fear of failing - not impressing - fear of others' strength - fear of weakness - fear of being exposed - not getting to work in time - not having a pension - security - old age - dying - war - injury in road accidents - fear of blindness - deafness - of not understanding the joke - fear of tough people - fear to take risks - fear to swim - to jump - to dive off a board - fear of disease - fear of moving - fear to sell - fear to buy - obsessional fear of spiders - dark cupboards - knives - muggers - fear of people - parties - crowds - clever people - fear of speaking your mind. | |||||
Lunch |
| 1st Produced: | Rosemary Branch, London | 2001 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1985 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | In 2001 Berkoff wrote a sequel to the play, The Bow of Ulysses, with the same characters | |||||
| Synopsis: | Two people meet on a bench in a park near the sea. It could be anywhere. The man sells the most humiliating item of uselessness that he could find to foist on to the public . . . space. He sells space in one of those cheap magazines that nobody has ever heard of. I did this once. The magazine would put the names of established and famous firms inside their pages to convince the innocent small printers and tradesmen to buy a half page. I trundled round Stoke Newington with the papers and forms in my briefcase. It was a good old life. I lasted one day. So naturally I used this experience to describe my growing awareness of the space in my own life and this profession seemed an apt metaphor for the male who is hollow and tries to give himself to the woman, who quickly realises the void within him but not altogether void. It's filled with the debris of expected performance, vanity, shallowness and sexual exploitation. Through their mutual catharsis the man learns how easy it is to be honest and reveal himself. | |||||
Massage |
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh Festival | 1987 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1987 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Sexual Comedy | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Massage is just another investigation into one of those delightful phenomena of the British way of life along with Wimpy bars, Boots the Chemist, the comer pub, Chinese take-away, chicken tandoori and the newspaper shop, all vying for attention in your average street and round the comer the latest, although not so new. Massage Parlour where your average bloke goes and gets what is endearingly called 'relief, being a simple wank aided by some viscous lubricant. 'Relief is a choice epithet to describe the British way of sex as if the male had a painful itch or wound and needed some medical aid. The play is a bit of fun with the concept of the massage parlour as the sanctuary for men who come tormented and distraught and are sent away renewed by the dextrous hands of the woman who then reveals herself as a truly liberated female, having to deal with what would appear to be almost a subspecies of the human race, the male. Her role is the stronger of the two since she wields the power and is the possessor of the man. | |||||
Master of Cafe Society |
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Messiah, The: scenes from a crucifixion |
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh Festival | 2000 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in Steven Berkoff Plays 3, Faber & faber, 2000 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | Also called Impressions of a Crucifixion and The Murder of Jesus Christ | |||||
| Synopsis: | I began writing Messiah with the desire in mind to describe what a human being must have suffered on the cross, from their point of view so to speak. I saw this as a beginning rather than an end, since this is the image foremost in mind. I was not attempting to create an alternative point of view based on research, new theories or recent discoveries. Mine was an attempt to tell the story based on my own reactions to the Gospels and to foresee its links to the future. However, during the time of writing I came across The Passover Plot, a remarkable book by Dr Hugh Schonfield (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959) which fitted in with some of my own attitudes towards Jesus. Schonfield viewed the myth as more human than Godlike and evolved a remarkable theory based on much research and painstaking detail; the plot was in fact concocted by Jesus himself who engineers his own martyrdom since he sought to redeem the Jews and felt he could only do this through Messianic intervention. | |||||
Metamorphosis |
| 1st Produced: | Round House, London | 1969 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Amber Lane Press, Ambergate, Derbyshire, 1981 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | story by Kafka | |||||
| Synopsis: | I came to Kafka on reading Metamorphosis. I saw in him the most marvelous exertions of the imagination working inside the desperation of a strangled soul, this frightened human being - and thereby releasing its horrors. He touched me in all my chords of being from grotesque to simple, sublime humanity. No other writer quite manages this with the same power and insight. A skeletal framework of steel scaffolding suggesting an abstract sculpture of a giant insect is stretched across the stage this serves as a home of the family or carapace. The stage is void of all props - everything is mimed - apart from three black stools (metal) situated equidistant downstage for the family to use. The scaffolding narrows at the back, containing in its centre Gregor's room or cage. He is on a small ramp (2' 6") suggesting always that Gregor is hovering above the family. He is always watching-forever aware. The living quarters that the family use are demarcated by sharply lit areas. | |||||
Miss Julie Versus Expressionism |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1973 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Mr Prufrock's Songs |
| 1st Produced: | London | 1974 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1985 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | aka Lunch | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Murder Of Jesus Christ |
| 1st Produced: | Unproduced | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Jewish Ritual Murder | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Jesus as a conspiracy figure | |||||
Oedipus |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in Steven Berkoff Plays 3, Faber & faber, 2000 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | doubling | |||||
| Notes: | Original Playwright - Sophocles | |||||
| Synopsis: | My version of Oedipus seeks to examine the play and occasionally peer beneath the tendency to strut and pose, to high-blown rhetoric and an air of self-importance somehow unavoidable in versions of Greek tragedy. I also sought to relate some events to images of today since the greatness of Greek tragedy is that its themes deal with the power of natural forces and the cycle of life and death. So its shadow lies across the years and its arguments are mankind's into perpetuity. I see Oedipus as a modern man, self-made, tough and bold, who uses language as a weapon to cut through verbal adiposity and obliqueness. He is more of a strutter whose stance relates to him having always to battle against some force determined to defeat him. Whether at the crossroads where he destroyed his father and the officious guards, or the Sphinx, he seeks to combat fate and leaves his adopted home so as not to fall into its predicted trap. So when yet another problem in Thebes raises its many heads Oedipus is already fight trained. | |||||
One Man Performance |
| 1st Produced: | 1982 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Three Monologues: | - | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Penal Colony, The |
| 1st Produced: | Arts Laboratory, London | 1968 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | from Kafka short story | |||||
| Synopsis: | An execution is to take place | |||||
Purgatory |
| 1st Produced: | 2009 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | short play | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | Play East: Part of Cycle East, East Festival09. A £5 triple bill of plays in 1 hour of East End theatrical magic. Purgatory by Steven Berkoff; The List by David Eldrige; Flowers In Her Hair by Rebecca Lenkiewicz | |||||
| Synopsis: | Inspired by the eclectic characters of the East End, three multi-award winning writers investigate the streets where these characters roam and uncover their secrets in an hour of new theatre especially curated for EAST09 Festival. | |||||
Requiem For Ground Zero |
| 1st Produced: | Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh | 2002 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Amber Lane Press, Ambergate, Derbyshire, 2002 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Staged Poem | - | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | At that period of time I had been trying to get dates for my play Messiah: Scenes from a Crucifixion (Fringe award winner in 2000), and naturally had been turned down by every subsidised theatre in London. So we toured Britain and we opened Messiah in Oxford at the Oxford Playhouse the night of the twin tower disaster. The play was timely you might say and the inflamed passions and pain that most people felt that day were to some extent assuaged by being able to identify with another tragedy. I found myself penning this poem as if there were a need in me to give something to it; to mourn and at the same time to pay homage, to grieve and to also express rage, anger, fury, compassion and ultimately, understanding. I take no sides but merely try to express the atmosphere of the time. . . take the temperature so to speak… Try to imagine what it was like being on a plane hijacked by terrorists and using your mobile phone to make your last calls to your wife… The horror of the situation where normally we feel so safe. | |||||
Ritual in Blood |
| 1st Produced: | 2001 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in Steven Berkoff Plays 3, Faber & faber, 2000 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | Large Cast | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Ritual murder is one of the most monstrous charges that has ever been leveled against the Jewish race. Apparently the first recorded charge took place in England, in Norwich, in 1144. From thence it spread to France and Germany. The basis of the charge is that the Jews sought to murder and disembowel a Christian child in mockery of the crucifixion and then use its blood in secret ceremonies or for the Passover wafers. Although there is nothing in contemporary Jewish law, mythology or mysticism or folklore that requires human or animal blood, this did not deter any opportunist from pointing the finger at the Jews and inspiring a real blood bath. So in one sense the paradox is that the reverse was true. It was their detractors who sought blood, and plenty of it! Jews were frequently 'bled' dry for their money and taxed intolerably, but not too much to prevent them from earning more and becoming a convenient Cash cow' to be milked whenever a crime could be pinned on them. | |||||
Salome |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | Original Playwright - Oscar Wilde | |||||
| Synopsis: | Berkoff says "I decided the stage should be bare and allow the words to bounce of the hard surfaces without being softened or cushioned". | |||||
Say a Prayer for Me |
| 1st Produced: | 1993 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Scumbags |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays 2" Faber, London, 1994 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Secret Life of Ophelia |
| 1st Produced: | 2001 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | 1v | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Hamlet and Ophelia express the infinite variety of their passion in a work which takes the form of an epistolary play in verse. Steven Berkoff's startlingly original new play charts the lovers' story beneath the surface of Shakespeare's play. With a muscularity of language tempered with tenderness, Berkoff's play is shot through with images of courtly love, sexual desire and intimations of future tragedy. The chill of the ending perfectly offsets the preceding violent heat. Another unique piece of work from Steven Berkoff. | |||||
Shakespeare's Villains |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Royal, Haymarket | 1998 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Shakespeare's villains are intended to make us feel good about ourselves and also to determine and strengthen our values and commitment to justice and humanity. Once we have branded a villain as such, we (might) share his desires to a point and can identify elements of our baser natures in his or hers. The villain enables us to vicariously enjoy his lust, greed, power, and hunger but then to finally condemn it. He purges us of these thrilling, illegal and immoral sensations. We do it via our imagination. The villain's final extinction means we are acquitted of sin since our sins are killed with him. The shades of villainy are vast and various, and Shakespeare is clever enough to show cause, motive and justification so that we might venture along for the ride for a while and not immediately condemn them since then there would be no play. Does not Shylock say in his great famous plea for basic and equal rights. . . 'Hath not a Jew eyes. . .?' etc. Richard III shares with us his ugliness and deformity. . . | |||||
Silent Night |
| 1st Produced: | Canal Cafe, London | 1998 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Sink The Belgrano |
| 1st Produced: | Half Moon Theatre, London | 1986 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1987 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Verse Satire | - | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | It had to be written. What a story! All those statements and contradictions in the House of Commons. All those 'statesmen' lying their little heads off in the Commons, and then when the facts emerged having to contradict themselves. What a pack of fakes, and what a disgusting bunch of rogues. It is apparent to everyone that the sinking of the Belgrano was a very dubious affair and led to severe attacks on the British Fleet and subsequent huge loss of life. How many people realise that before that calculated piece of sabotage not one British soldier had died! After unloosing that torpedo, under orders not from the submarine Conqueror but from England, on a ship way outside the demilitarised zone all havoc broke loose. It was a calculated gamble to end the war at a stroke and failed miserably. My play deals with the situation as I found it and was inspired by the book by Arthur Gavshon and Desmond Rice. I met Desmond on New Year's Eve in 1984 and, mutually expressing our disgust at the incident of the Belgrano. | |||||
Sit And Shiver |
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
| Company: | Presented by Brian Daniels in association with Saw Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Warm-hearted tribute to Jewish family life and its eating habits. Kieron Quirke, Evening Standard | |||||
Stunning the Punters |
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | ||||||
Sturm und Drang or Confessions of a Cad! |
| 1st Produced: | 1994 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London, 2005 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | Comedy of Manners | - | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | - | |||||
| Synopsis: | Mutant Killer Girls, Meryl Streep as the girl/ played as a French Jew who was brought up in Wales | |||||
Tell-Tale Heart |
| 1st Produced: | 1996 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | - | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||||
| Genre: | Short Play | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | story byEdgar Allan Poe | |||||
| Synopsis: | A solo piece performed along with Pitbull and Actor. Poe´s tale is a psychological monologue of a murderer confronted with the police | |||||
Trial, The |
| 1st Produced: | Netherlands | 1971 | ||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Amber Lane Press, Ambergate, Derbyshire, 1981 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | extras | |||||
| Notes: | novel by Kafka | |||||
| Synopsis: | What is K's, alias Kafka's, guilt? Nothing so complex as world guilt or messianic martyrdom. But K's guilt, for which he must die, is the guilt of betrayal: the guilt of betraying his inner spirit to the safety of mediocrity, For every action that is not expressed through fear, for every desire that wells up in the breast and is not given vent in action through fear turns into a little rat of guilt that gnaws away at your vitals. For every shout held back, for every venture not ventured on, for every regret in the soul, for every compromise you make and slur you took adds to the sorry storehouse of guilt that screams out for justice. The soul screams out for vengeance, starved as it is in its dark and stinking hovel. Guilt is the difference between what your spirit sings out for and what your courage permits you to take. man is waiting ther | |||||
West or Welcome to Dalston Junction |
| 1st Produced: | 1983 | |||||
| Company: | - | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber & Faber, London, 1985 | ISBN | - | |||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||||
| Notes: | may have been performed in 1980 in Wagga Wagga, Australia | |||||
| Synopsis: | West was first performed at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden, in May 1983. That was its world premiere, although I believe a version was performed in Wagga Wagga, Australia, three years before, in 1980. But they had tampered with the text and even included a scene from East, thus disqualifying themselves from being the first to present West. East, my play about the East End from a young hero's point of view, was the first of a series which, naturally, inspired West. The BBC actually commissioned it and then found it not quite dull enough for television - much to my delight, as I was then able to stage it at a later date. Limehouse Productions and Ian Albery sponsored its first showing in London, and Limehouse have filmed it for television at the time of writing, so I hope that as West played before its thousands, it will soon play before its millions. | |||||