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Sink the Belgrano!
Berkoff wrote Sink the Belgrano! after the Falklands War. "It had to be written. What a story! All those statements and contradictions in the House of Commons. All those statesmen lying their heads off in the Commons".
The play is in verse with many references to Shakespeare's history plays, though with Maggot Scratcher, Pimp and Nit instead of Hal, Falstaff and Hotspur. But will the play survive given that now no-one remembers Nott and Pym (Nit and Pimp)? Or will the play's broader theme rise above this and will it remain topical forever "when we've been so damned good to them/ never complained when their death squads/ got rid of opposition in mass graves/ nor publicly showed our disgust at torture".
acapulco
Berkoff was filming Rambo and wrote the play based on minor actors in the bar getting drunk on Tequila. Berkoff played the role of Steve. Interesting but not spectacular.
Sturm und drang or confessions of a cad!
A comedy of manners for three performers.
Brighton Beach ScumBags
A disappointing play with a too obvious plot and message. A family on the beach demonstrate their low tastes and their gay prejudice. After one of them beats up a gay man a group of gays come and beat him up.
An update: reading the play suggests a clichéd play with little interest. Seeing it in performance changes everything. The interaction of dialogue between the actors reveal the stagecraft of Berkoff. In Delinquent Berkoff says "One day Dad rented a car to take us all on a trip to Brighton and as it drew past the pavilion, I was gobsmacked at my first glance of the deep blue sea; it was a perfect summer's day". Belinda Blanchard says "I can't believe it but it was 21 years ago
now. I was just grateful to be working- all I can recall was
that George was a great fun director and very happy, and I felt a tad
uncomfortable about the idea that I was taking the piss out of fat
people. I always find it difficult to tell the difference between when
someone is taking the piss out of fat/ uneducated/ working class people,
and simply reflecting them.
Dahling you were marvellous
A TV play with a large cast, the camera moves from table to table in a restaurant, eavesdropping here and there, like one of Altman's extended takes. Berkoff says it was a parody on the theatrical chattering set, people with "little substance of their own". One of these is Steve, Berkoff´s alter ego on stage.
6
Steven Berkoff's new play is 6 Actors in Search of a Director (the title is of course a nod to Pirandello's play). It is "a bird's eye view of the film industry". The try out was in the Odyssey Theatre is LA, USA. It was directed by Berkoff and the actors were Jan Broberg, Oliver Cowley, Paul Darrigo, Courtney DeCosky, Jase Lindgren, Elizabeth Southard and Michael Tatlock. The premiere was in the Charing Cross Theatre, London on 16 May 2012 with Neil Stuke, Philip Voss, Andrée Bernard, Sarah Chamberlain, Ruth Everett, and Paul Trussell as the actors and Jonathan Sidgwick plays the role of the director. The actual director was Berkoff. It is a comedy set on a film location: "Six actors are on a movie set waiting for their call. Until then, they are in limbo, needing the director to bring them to life. He does this merely by using the one magic word - Action!" |
