Steven Berkoff entered the theatre about the same time I began training for it. He has therefore always figured in my theatrical consciousness, though I have never seen his work and, for some reason, none of it has joined my vast collection of plays - until I picked this up earlier in the week.
The collection here is of his minor work, two of which have never been performed (though there has been an acted-out reading of The Messiah). That does not mean they are neglible. All three appeal to me largely because they happen to be subjects which I have researched: the blood libel of Jews in medieval England, Jesus the man, and the Oedipus myth.
Ritual in Blood is the fully realised play, given at Nottingham Playhouse in 2001. I wish I had been involved with theatre at that time - I would have loved to see it. The piece is ambitious, dozens of characters coming and going, and Berkoff and I come to same conclusion: it's all, always, about money. The Messiah naturally deploys similar devices - Berkoff famously developed idiosyncratic, highly personal forms of acting and writing. I feel sure he would have reworked some elements of this text had it gone on to be fully staged. I have considered the same twist or explanation for the miracle but did not find it entirely satisfactory here.
Oedipus I thought was excellent. Firstly we are not dealing with the same level of reality here. It has always been a myth and Berkoff's style is brilliantly 'mythic'. Like Sophocles, he makes the action continuous - one unbelievably awful episode - and breezily ignores or overrides the obvious problems involved. Indeed, it is the pace which gives the piece its power. I especially enjoyed his device for a couple of necessary flashbacks: instead of dull narration, characters act out the incidents as if they were there, witnesses to things happening now, before their eyes.
Fascinating and intriguing.
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