British writer-actor-director Steven Berk-off, who created such thrilling stage masterpieces as Decadence, Greek and East, brings his galvanic energy to Cape Town this week in three performances of his solo show, One Man.
Your plays have caused a sensation in South Africa since their first productions in the 1970s and undoubtedly did much to open up our stage as a vehicle for social critique. Any comments?
My theatre addresses basic emotional issues and seeks the improvement of humankind. I feel vindicated that during the years of the cultural boycott — in the Seventies and Eighties — I allowed my plays to be performed here. After all, no one would perform them in England at the time!
In particular, Decadence has enjoyed numerous South African revivals since its first production more than 20 years ago. Why do you think this excoriating exposé of the peculiarly British class system fascinates South African audiences?
The upper class in England, and the middle classes that ape them, are so repellent that they’re easy to write about. I call them upper-class yobs, with their lack of personal etiquette, their voracious consumption of others and — increasingly — their banal, robotic invasion of public spaces with their idiot laptop computers and cellphones. I was at Los Angeles airport the other day and there they all were, turning the concourse into their offices. I don’t want to hear the fruits of their idiot brains!
Your brand of theatre has always celebrated the poetic tongue in the midst of truly devastating social satire. Your language is now a rapier, now a burst of roses. Comments please?
Language, in the last resort, is that part of your life where you’re in charge of your own destiny. That is where you are free. As an actor I create these texts as things for others to shape. It’s so much more satisfying than waiting for my inferiors to offer me work as an actor in their marble mausoleums. The people who run theatre institutions in England are mostly unspeakable.
How do you read the health of British theatre at the moment?
It’s trying to hold its own, but it’s mostly a lost cause. There’s little opportunity or variety. There are very few gifted producers, and a conspiracy exists against anybody gifted. We need a bulwark against the corruption of society, and with all its faults theatre is there.
And the British body politic?
Worse than ever: chaos and destruction everywhere. Services are breaking down and there is tremendous discontent. The place is run by a kind of crazy mayor.
You presented One Man at the National Arts Festival at Grahamstown in 1997. What did you think of South African culture as you experienced it then?
I was quite impressed by Grahamstown, by the black theatre I saw and, of course, I’ve always admired Athol Fugard. I thought the festival was run by cultivated people. Then I played at the Market Theatre, and I found Johannesburg dreary and nihlistic — security guards and razor wire everywhere. The theatre I was in seemed past its prime, and I struggled to get my money! The more I perform, by the way, the more I realise audiences are basically the same. It’s the murderous politicians who run our countries who insist on differences.
Describe your current projects.
The Secret Love Life of Ophelia is a verse play that’s just opened in Los Angeles. It’s played the Edinburgh Festival, Elsinore in Denmark — really! — and at a small London theatre partial to my work. It’s my answer today to Decadence. I am very keen to have it mounted in South Africa.
After three decades as an incendiary force in theatre, is there anywhere else for an iconoclast such as yourself to go?
Of course. People are ruled by fear. After 25 years on the road, I’ve known many doors close on me. I go where I am welcome, which is all over the globe; as Coriolanus says, “There is a world outside.” The world has been my nation.
The details
Steven Berkoff appears in One Man at the Baxter Theatre Complex nightly at 8pm until November 23. Tel: (021) 680 3974