Steven Berkoff, Choral Unity, and Modes of Governance

Abstract

Steven Berkoff has remained a polarizing and influential figure in British theatre for almost forty years, yet his work has received scant critical attention despite its widespread imitation and regular appearance on British stages. In this article, Jon Foley Sherman identifies choral movement as a key element of Berkoff's signature aesthetic of exaggerated, precise, and violent movement and language. Tracing a trajectory from his 1971 experiments with Agamemnon to his direction of Coriolanus, this article analyzes the uses to which choral movement has been put, and reveals a startling political development in Berkoff's work that belies the consistency of his chorus's manner of moving. His commitment to a particular kind of ensemble performance not only altered the political valences of his source texts, it eventually resulted in a stark assessment of self-government that is rendered more problematic by Berkoff's deployment of polyracial casts. Jon Foley Sherman is a visiting assistant professor at Beloit College; he recently earned a PhD in theatre and drama at Northwestern University, where his dissertation proposed a phenomenology of stage presence in contemporary performance. One of Jacques Lecoq's last students, he is also the artistic director of Sprung Movement Theatre.