Upon studying Steven Berkoff as a practitioner I have always profoundly noted that his theories are very hard to define due to their ever changing and versatile nature. The lack of official documentation on Berkoff’s theories makes it especially hard to fully comprehend what exactly the Berkovian performance style involves and dictates. Fortunately he has written a few journals which chronicle the rehearsal and creative process he has gone through for his various productions. Among these publications is Mediations on Metamorphosis (1995), a journal of Berkoff’s time spent in Japan directing the tenth major production of Metamorphosis, and Coriolanus in Deutschland (1992) which chronicles the rehearsal process for his 1988 production of Coriolanus in Munich, Germany. However, these journals are primarily autobiographical and lack much theoretical context. In 1969, Steven Berkoff presented the debut of his adaptation of Frank Kafka’s Metamorphosis at the Round House Theatre in London. This production was significant because Berkoff – serving for the first time as writer/adapter, director, and actor in a full-length project – presented an aesthetic which would become identified as his artistic trademark. Metamorphosiscombined elements of Brechtian Epic Theatre by using actors to purposefully represent characters rather than become them; Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty by breaking from traditional theatre texts and asking the actors to bare their inner thoughts as if they were human-sacrifices to create ritualistic theatre; Jean-Louis Barrault’s “total-theatre” by using all possible means to uncover the meaning – conscious or otherwise – of the play; and Jacques Le Coq’s theories of mime, movement, masks, and ensemble, by using the performers to create the environment. Berkoff has also been seen to incorporate some of the visual techniques used in Kabuki, a highly stylized, highly rhythmic classicalJapanese form of theatre. ‘Kabuki music rises about the body of the actor. It does not impose itself upon the actor, but instead gives musical and rhythmic expression to his movement, and in doing so increases the flow of theatrical expressiveness toward the audience.’ (1974, p.113) Another aspect of Japanese Kabuki is evident in Berkoff’s dealings with masks and face paint.

Even though Berkoff appropriated production styles from others and adapted the spoken words from a novel, the end result was uniquely Berkovian. In Mediation of Metamorphosis (1995) Berkoff seems to somewhat challenge someone to define his style when he writes, “More than ever I feel my work develop into a kind of school, not by rigid formula but by learning certain techniques which expand your ideology and communication skills.” (1995, p.137) There are themes that have undeniably remained relatively constant throughout Berkoff’s work, themes that can be seen as somewhat of a base to the Berkovian theoretical framework. These themes I speak of are routed mainly in the belief that the actors instincts should be trusted over all else and the job of theory is to help evoke these instincts. Berkoff’s common themes of extensive physical expression, transformation, and over-exaggerated experimental emphasis upon the spoken word should therefore be used as a means to evoke and exaggerate the actor instincts when dealing with the character.