First lesson in the third of our practitioners, part of the Devising Theatre series of lessons for GCSE Drama students. This presentation on Steven Berkoff contains an introduction and some basic exercises plus a home learning activity.

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Steven Berkoff
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The theatre seemed to want to claw back
its ritualistic origins.
[Lecoq’s] techniques gave me the
opportunity to invent ways of presenting
works whereby all elements of the human
being are brought into motion.
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Groups
I revelled in the primal emotions and classic
tragedy that might make for a theatre directed at
the audience’s senses as well as their minds.
Total Theatre Physical Theatre
Joan
Littlewood
Jacques
Lecoq
Bertolt
Brecht
Networks: UK
Birthday: 3rd August 1937
In a relationship: Clara Fisher
L’Ecole Internationale
de Theatre Jacques
Lecoq

2. C1 Devising
Learning Intentions
A01 Create and develop ideas to communicate meaning for theatrical
performance.
A02 Apply theatrical skills to realise artistic intentions in live performance.
A04 Analyse and evaluate their own work and the work of others.
Success Criteria By the end of the lesson I will be able to:
Understand the key elements of Berkoff’s acting techniques
Explore elements of TOTAL THEATRE
Create a performance using elements of TOTAL theatre
Perform your piece
Analyse and Evaluate your piece
SBS: How will you use these skills to help you achieve the success criteria?
SBS: Resourceful (Questioning, Making Links, Imagining)
SBS: Reciprocal (Collaboration, Empathy & Listening, Imitation)
SBS: Reflective (Planning, Revising, Distilling)
SBS: Resilient (Absorption, Managing Distractions, Noticing, Perseverance)

3. Written Response
Home-Learning Task
Devising Drama
Exploring Steven Berkoff
TOTAL THEATRE
• Dynamic and Experimental
• Exaggerated and Stylised Mime and facial
expressions
• Sparse Dialogue
• Graphic Sound Effects
• Choral Speech and Movement
• Exaggerated Externalising emotions
• Physicalisation of objects
• Third person address
• Rhythm through voice and body
• Abstract use of chorus and ensemble playing
• Create a POSTER that
identifies Berkoff’s Style
of Acting (TOTAL
THEATRE)
• Include key quotes
• Here’s the man himself
performing and explaining a
piece titled ‘The Actor’
• Berkoff - The Actor

4. Who is Steven Berkoff?
Steven Berkoff
Success Criteria
• Understand the key elements of
Berkoff’s acting techniques
• Explore elements of TOTAL
THEATRE
• Create a performance using
elements of TOTAL theatre
• Perform your piece
• Analyse and Evaluate your piece
Understanding Practitioners
There are some individuals and groups who have
had an enormous influence on the way Drama
has changed and developed.
These ‘practitioners’ have often built up their
theories through a lifetime of experience of
working in, and thinking about Drama, and have
made a unique contribution to theatre practice.

5. Who is Steven Berkoff?
Read the introduction to Berkoff and then
answer the four questions with your
learning partner and copy up your answers
into your book using full sentences

6. Berkoff as a Practitioner
• Steven Berkoff was born in Stepney, London.
Berkoff was born as Leslie Steven Berks on 3
August 1937
• He trained at Webber Douglas Academy of
Dramatic Art, in London, in 1958, and at the Ecole
Jacques Lecoq, in Paris, in 1965
• After studying drama and mime in London and
Paris, he entered a series of repertory companies
and in 1968 formed the London Theatre Group.
• His plays and adaptations have been performed in
many countries and in many languages.
• Among the many adaptations Berkoff has created
for the stage, directed and toured, are Kafka's
Metamorphosis and The Trial, Agamemnon after
Aeschylus, and Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.
• He has directed and toured productions of
Shakespeare's Coriolanus also playing the title role,
Richard II, Hamlet and Macbeth, as well as Oscar
Wilde's Salome.
• Berkoff is a great advocate of stirring the
audience’s imagination to get them fully engaged
and involved in the play, rather than allowing
them to sit back in a passive manner with all of
their thinking done for them by the performance.
• As well as being an actor, Berkoff is a
playwright and director.
• His earliest plays are adaptations of works
by Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis (1969);
In the Penal Colony (1969); and The Trial
(1971).
• These complex psychological plays are
nightmarish and create a disturbing sense
of alienation in their audiences.
• Berkoff's original stage plays include:
• East, West, Messiah: Scenes from a
Crucifixion, The Secret Love Life of
Ophelia, Decadence, Harry's Christmas,
Massage, Acapulco and Brighton Beach
Scumbags.
• He has performed his trilogy of solo
shows, One Man, Shakespeare's Villains
and Requiem for Ground Zero, in venues
all over the world.

7. TOTAL THEATRE
Berkoff: His Acting Style
TOTAL THEATRE - The concept pursued
by Berkoff amongst others, that all
aspects/elements of theatre should
have equal weight. Text, lighting,
mime, gesture, sound, movement,
music etc.
• In a Berkoff production the
interpretation of the text is through
the spoken word, gesture and the
facial expression of the actor.
• Emphasis upon the actor as the most
important and creative aspect of the
performance. Opens up a theatre of
the imagination, and establishes the
actor/audience relationship.
• Berkoff has a distinctively physical
style of acting, with the emphasis on
physical theatre and mime.
• Scenery is significant by its
absence, firstly, both the audience
and actor are made aware of the
acting space and of the creativity of
the performance both on the part
of the actor and of his audience.
• Berkoff’s style relies heavily upon
the actors skills and mime and
upon the audience’s ability to
recognise and understand the signs
in order to create the world on
stage.
• Through the actors words, spatial
positioning, physical attitude in
relation to the audience, Berkoff’s
characters establish themselves as
story tellers.
“I'm very resistant to most forms of
theatre”
Steven Berkoff
Watch DVD

8. Who is Steven Berkoff?
Read the introduction to Berkoff and then
answer the four questions with your
learning partner and copy up your answers
into your book using full sentences

9. Read through the worksheet and
summarise Berkoff’s acting style using
only FIVE words or phrases.
Large scale Exaggerated and Stylised
Mime and facial expressions
The replacement of props and furniture
with what can be created by the actors
bodies
Characters as storytellers
Dynamic and Experimental movement
Sparse Dialogue
Sound Effects (Created by actors)
Choral Speech and Movement
Exaggerated externalising emotions
Third person address
Rhythm through voice and body
Abstract use of chorus and ensemble
playing.
The link with the idea of “total theatre”,
which seeks to attract an almost spiritual
response from the audience through
using all the resources of theatre
including athletic actors

10. Who is Steven Berkoff? Quick Quiz
1. Berkoff is often described as a Drama
Practitioner. What do you think this means?
2. What elements of TOTAL theatre did Berkoff
believe should have equal weight in a
production?
3. In Berkoff’s view, what should theatre do to
an audience?
4. Berkoff’s believed the actor was the most
important and creative aspect of the
performance – what skills did he get them to
focus on? Explain your answer

11. What is TOTAL theatre?

12. Devising
Explore and Experiment
ELEMENTS OF TOTAL THEATRE
• Large scale exaggerated and Stylised Mime and facial expressions
• The replacement of props and furniture with what can be created by the actors bodies
• Characters as storytellers
• Dynamic and Experimental movement
• Sparse Dialogue
• Sound Effects (Created by actors)
• Choral Speech and Movement
• Exaggerated externalising emotions
• Third person address
• Rhythm through voice and body
• Abstract use of chorus and ensemble playing.
• The link with the idea of “total theatre”, which seeks to attract an almost spiritual
response from the audience through using all the resources of theatre including athletic
actors.

13. Devising
Explore and Experiment
• Starter: Play music (Stand in circle and go around the circle and
everyone does a move to the music. Go around the circle and build
up the moves. Stop half way to consolidate all the moves so far and
then continue around the circle. Prisoner/Guards, Knees, Backs.
• Focus Activity: Stand in rows of 3 both horizontally and vertically.
Jump for 8 turning over your left shoulder on the 8th count. Then 6
then 4 then 2 then all the way around on 1. Do this as a whole group
with teacher counting. Then without counting Then do it a line at a
time but the student must keep their eyes on the teacher who walks
around the room.
• Group work: Create Throne, Vase of Flowers, Bowl of Spaghetti.
REFLECTION - Prior Learning: What style does this link to?

14. Are you ready to perform?
VOICE
•PACE
•PITCH
•PAUSE
•TONE
•EXPRESSION
MOVEMENT
•GESTURE
•ACTIONS
•STILLNESS
•FLUENCY
•EXPRESSION
CHARACTER
•CREATIVITY
•COMMITMENT
•IMAGINATION
•BELIEF
COMMUNICATION
•STORYTELLING
•GENRE
•WELL-REHEARSED
•DRAMA STRATEGIES

15. Character as
storytellers
Dynamic and
Experimental
movement
Sparse Dialogue
Sound Effects
(Created by actors)
Exaggerated and
Stylised Mime and
facial expressions
representing
emotions
Choral Speech and
Movement
Rhythm through
voice and body
Third person address The replacement of
props and furniture
with what can be
created by the actors
bodies