Steven Berkoff links
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Greek (opera) Andrew Clements interviewing Mark-Anthony Turnage 15 Feb 2000 I just got stuck
into cutting Berkoff's play and setting the lines
almost as soon as I'd cut them. It was a strange way of
working. Greek is a very wordy play, and the language is
unbelievable - the opera libretto's tame by comparison. I
had to match that language, that extraordinary
combination of Shakespeare, colloquial English and
cockney, and the sort of seaside humour that suddenly
becomes incredibly lyrical. |
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Greek 1997 Greek
was written as a desperate attempt to imagine a reality
beyond the urban nightmare of the early Eighties. The
genius of Berkoff is that he accomplishes this with
tremendously visceral wit and sexy theatricality. |
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Greek (opera)
(link is no longer free) Geoff Brown, 7 Nov 2000 Caricature, not insight, dominates the libretto. Act II had the evenings red meat.
Instead of a static procession of scenes played out
against Conor Murphys black doors and garish
miniature interiors, we were drawn into genuine drama:
sort-of-sex down by the footlights, riddling Sphinxes,
the awful truth dawning. |
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Greek (link is
no longer free) Charles Spencer, 10 Jan 2001 Without Berkoff's insistence on high-definition energy, and his hijacking of mime from poncy, posturing Frenchmen, I doubt whether Theatre de Complicité and a host of other imaginative companies would have flowered so productively over the past 20 years. But there is a downside to Berkoff - the monstrous ego, the self-indulgence, the childish obscenity, and the gaping hole where his heart ought to be. He took to writing plays largely to create
whopping, showy parts for himself, but his work reveals a
stunted, misanthropic personality, seething with hatred
for almost everything except his own, loudly proclaimed
genius. The sledgehammer vigour of his drama exhilarates
at first, but after a couple of hours you are screaming
to be let out of the theatre. |
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Greek
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Greek Matrix Theatre, LA, 1982
Berkoff
is to this generation what John Osborne was to his --
with one difference. Berkoff is a poet -- an angry one --
with words pouring out of his characters' mouths like
strings of unending phlegm -- words of anger and
injustice and digested filth. This theater rants and
rails you while provoking thoughts and feelings that
erupt as though GREEK was an emotional inner acne. |
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Greek (opera)
(link is no longer free) Cette
uvre dense pour quatre solistes (aux rôles
multiples) et ensemble de chambre (une vingtaine
d´interprètes usant presque tous de petites percussions
d´appoint) se présente comme une relecture sans
complexe du mythe d´dipe, sur la base d´une
pièce décapante de Steven Berkoff écrite en cockney.
Skinhead oisif, Eddy y joue le rôle du héros grec
recadré dans une dimension post-moderne qui traite
l´assassinat du père (un gérant de bar),
l´accouplement avec la mère (une serveuse), l´énigme
du Sphinx (double, féminin et porté sur le sexe), le
fléau symbolique (une épidémie de peste liée au
régime de Margaret Thatcher) et la mort fatale
(évacuée in fine sous prétexte que rien ne
résiste à l´amour) avec une désinvolture
volontairement caricaturale. |
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Harry´s Christmas (link is down) Aaron Jelbart The bulk of the play is Harry in conversation with himself, analysing his life and the reasons why he is alone for the holidays once again. He emerges as a fully rounded character with more than his share of human frailty, and the impending tragedy is more powerful for being so localised and mundane. Its a marvellous piece of dramatic writing. ...this approach to the character seems to mute the roar of Berkoffs script, however, and makes the ending trite when it should be heartbreaking. He is not shown here engulfed by despair, at the edge of the pit, and so his story doesnt move us in the way it should...The potential offered by Berkoffs script is left largely unrealised. |
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