Steven Berkoff Metamorphosis Script Free

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Steven Berkoff the playwright and the. Compare the tame filming of the novels of Graham Greene with the film script. In Meditations on Metamorphosis Berkoff. Steven Berkoff was born in. Free Association, and the theatre books I Am Hamlet, Overview and Meditations on Metamorphosis. Among Berkoff's film credits are. Metamorphosis, Act One. Steven Berkoff is an institution and working on a play with his name attached is an honour. Reading the script. PowerPoint of Practical Activities for Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis - Steven Berkoff. This is a script that has been performed successfully by primary school.

(Redirected from Stephen Berkoff)
Born
Leslie Steven Berkoff

3 August 1937 (age 82)
ResidenceLondon, England
EducationRaine's Foundation Grammar School
Hackney Downs School
Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
Alma materL'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq
OccupationActor, playwright and theatre director
Years active1958–present
Notable work
Sink the Belgrano! (1986)
Shakespeare's Villains (1998)
Spouse(s) (divorced)
Partner(s)Clara Fisher
AwardsTotal Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
LA Weekly Theater Award for Solo Performance (2000)
Websitewww.stevenberkoff.com

Leslie Steven Berkoff (born Berks; born 3 August 1937) is an English character actor, author, playwright, practitioner and theatre director. As a film actor, he is best known for his performances in villainous roles, such as Lt. Col Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II, General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop and Adolf Hitler in the TV mini-series War and Remembrance.[1][2][3]

  • 2Career
  • 3Personal life
  • 6References

Early life[edit]

Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks on 3 August 1937, in Stepney in the East End of London.[1] He is the son of Pauline (née Hyman), a housewife, and Alfred Berks (born Berkoff or Berkhoff), a tailor.[4] His family was Jewish (originally from Romania and Russia).[5][6] Berkoff's father had anglicised his family surname to 'Berks' in order to aid the family's assimilation into Britain. Berkoff later removed the 's' from and added back the 'off' to his own name, and went by his middle name.[7]

Berkoff attended Raine's Foundation Grammar School (1948–50),[8]Hackney Downs School,[9] the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art (1958) and L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (1965).[10]

Career[edit]

Theatre[edit]

Berkoff started his theatre training in the Repertory Company at Her Majesty's Theatre in Barrow-in-Furness, for approximately two months, in June and July 1962.[11]

As well as an actor, Berkoff is a noted playwright and theatre director.[12] His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1969); In the Penal Colony (1969) and The Trial (1971). In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of verse plays including East (1975), Greek (1980) and Decadence (1981), followed by West (1983) later adapted and recorded at Limehouse Studios for transmission on C4 television in 1983, Harry's Christmas (Lunch) also recorded at Limehouse Studios in 1983 was never transmitted by C4 as it was considered 'too dark', Sink the Belgrano! (1986), Massage (1997) and The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (2001). Berkoff described Sink the Belgrano! as 'even by my modest standards .. one of the best things I have done'.[13]

Drama critic Aleks Sierz describes Berkoff's dramatic style as 'In-yer-face theatre':

“The language is usually filthy, characters talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes off, have sex, humiliate each other, experience unpleasant emotions, become suddenly violent. At its best, this kind of theatre is so powerful, so visceral, that it forces audiences to react: either they feel like fleeing the building or they are suddenly convinced that it is the best thing they have ever seen and want all their friends to see it too. It is the kind of theatre that inspires us to use superlatives, whether in praise or condemnation.'[14]”

In 1988, Berkoff directed an interpretation of Salome by Oscar Wilde, performed in slow motion, at the Gate Theatre, Dublin.[15] For his first directorial job at the UK's Royal National Theatre,[16] Berkoff revived the play with a new cast at the Lyttelton Auditorium; it opened in November 1989.[17] In 1998, his solo play Shakespeare's Villains premièred at London's Haymarket Theatre and was nominated for a Society of London TheatreLaurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.[18]

The Trial Steven Berkoff

In a 2010 interview with guest presenter Emily Maitlis on The Andrew Marr Show, Berkoff stated that he found it 'flattering' to play evil characters, saying that the best actors assumed villainous roles.[19] In 2011, Berkoff revived a previously performed one-man show at the HammersmithRiverside Studios, titled One Man. It consisted of two monologues; the first was an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Tell-Tale Heart, the second a piece called Dog, written by Berkoff, which was a comedy about a loud-mouthed football fan and his dog. In 2013, Berkoff performed his play, An Actors Lament at the Sinden Theatre in Tenterden, Kent; it is his first verse play since Decadence in 1981.[20] His 2018 one-act play Harvey deals with the story of Harvey Weinstein.[21]

Film[edit]

In film, Berkoff has played villains such as Soviet General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy (1983), the corrupt art dealer Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), the Soviet officer Colonel Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and gangster George Cornell in The Krays (1990). Berkoff has stated that he accepts roles in Hollywood only to subsidise his theatre work, and that he regards many of the films in which he has appeared as lacking artistic merit.[22]

In the Stanley Kubrick films A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975), Berkoff played a police officer, and a gambler aristocrat. His other films include the Hammer film Prehistoric Women (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), The Passenger (1975), Joseph Andrews (1977), McVicar (1980), Outland (1981), Coming Out of the Ice (1982), Underworld (1985), Revolution (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Prince's film Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Prisoner of Rio (1988), Fair Game (1995), the Australian film Flynn (1996), and Legionnaire (1998).

Berkoff was the main character voice in Expelling The Demon (1999), a short animation with music by Nick Cave. It received the award for Best Film at the Ukraine Film Festival. He has a cameo in the 2008 film The Cottage. Berkoff appeared in the 2010 British gangster film The Big I Am as 'The MC', and in the same year portrayed the antagonist in The Tourist. Berkoff portrayed Dirch Frode, attorney to Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), in David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Another 2011 credit is the independent film, Moving Target. He also stars in Katherine of Alexandria (2014) playing the role of Liberius.

In 1994, he both appeared in and directed the film version of his verse play Decadence. Filmed in Luxembourg, it co-stars Joan Collins.

Television[edit]

In television, Berkoff had early roles in episodes of The Avengers and UFO episode 'The Cat with Ten Lives' in 1970. Other TV credits include: Hagath, in the episode 'Business as Usual' of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Stilgar, in the mini-series Children of Dune; gangster Mr Wiltshire in one episode of Hotel Babylon; lawyer Freddie Eccles in 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs', an episode of Agatha Christie's Marple; and Adolf Hitler in the mini-series War and Remembrance. In 1998, he made a guest appearance in the Canadian TV series La Femme Nikita (in the episode 'In Between'). He played Ray Cook in “Bank Robbery” New Tricks (S3:E6) (2006).

In 2010, Berkoff played former Granada Television chairman Sidney Bernstein for the BBC Four drama, The Road to Coronation Street. He has played the historical Florentine preacher Girolamo Savonarola in two separate TV productions: the 1991 TV film A Season of Giants, and the 2011 series The Borgias. Berkoff appears as himself in the 'Science' episode of the British current affairs satire Brass Eye (1997), warning against the dangers of the fictional environmental disaster 'Heavy Electricity'. In September 2012, Berkoff appeared in the Doctor Who episode 'The Power of Three'.[23]

Berkoff

In 2014 Berkoff played a supporting role in the second season of the Lifetime TV show Witches of East End.

In 2016, he appeared in Season 3, Episode 1 of Man Down on Channel Four in the UK.

Other work[edit]

In 1996, Berkoff appeared as the Master of Ceremonies in a BBC Radio 2 concert version of Kander & Ebb's Cabaret. He provided the voice-over for the N-Trance single 'The Mind of the Machine', which rose to No. 15 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1997. He appeared in the opening sequence to Sky Sports' coverage of the 2007 Heineken Cup Final, modelled on a speech by Al Pacino in the film Any Given Sunday (1999).

Berkoff voices the character General Lente, commander of the Helghan Third Army, in Killzone. He provides motion capture and voice performance for the PlayStation 3 game Heavenly Sword, as General Flying Fox.

Berkoff's 2015 novel, Sod the Bitches has been described as 'a kind of Philip Roth-like romp through the sex life of a libidinous actor'.[by whom?] A memoir, Bad Guy! Journal of a Hollywood Turkey (2014) records his time working on a Hollywood blockbuster.[21][24]

Berkoff appeared in the British Heart Foundation's two-minute public service advertisement, Watch Your Own Heart Attack, broadcast on ITV in August 2008.[25] He also presented the BBC Horizon episodes, 'Infinity and Beyond' (2010) and 'The power of the Placebo' (2014).

He is patron of Brighton's Nightingale Theatre, a fringe theatre venue.[26]

Critical assessment[edit]

According to Annette Pankratz, in her 2005 Modern Drama review of Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance by Robert Cross: 'Steven Berkoff is one of the major minor contemporary dramatists in Britain and – due to his self-fashioning as a bad boy of British theatre and the ensuing attention of the media – a phenomenon in his own right.'[27] Pankratz further asserts that Cross 'focuses on Berkoff's theatre of self-performance: that is, the intersections between Berkoff, the public phenomenon and Berkoff, the artist.'[27]

Awards and honours[edit]

In 1991, Berkoff's play which Kvetch won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Comedy. In 1997, Berkoff won the first Total Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award.[28] In 1998, he was nominated for a The Society of London Theatre's Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for his one-man show Shakespeare's Villains.[18] In 1999, the 25th-anniversary revival of the play East, directed by Berkoff, received the Stage Award for Best Ensemble work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2000, he won the LA Weekly Theater Award for Solo Performance, again for Shakespeare's Villains.[10][29] Also in 2000, his play Messiah, Scenes from a Crucifixion received a Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[30] In 2001, The Secret Love Life of Ophelia won a Bank of Scotland Herald Angel.[31]

The Berkoff Performing Arts Centre at Alton College, Hampshire, is named for Berkoff.[32] Attending the Alton College ceremony to honour him, he stated:

Steven Berkoff Metamorphosis Script Free
“I remember in my younger days questioning what life means. Finding a place like the Berkoff Performing Arts Centre, I found myself as a person. Having a place like this sowed the seeds of the man I think I am today. A place like this is the first step in changing the life of a person. There's something about theatre that draws people together because it's something connected with the human soul. All over the UK, the performing arts links people with a shared humanity as a way to open the doors to the mysteries of life. We should never underestimate the power of the theatre. It educates, informs, enlightens and humanises us all.”

He taught a drama master-class later that day, and performed Shakespeare's Villains for an invited audience that evening.

Personal life[edit]

Steven Berkoff Movies

Berkoff lives with his partner, Clara Fisher, in London.[1][10]

Defamation lawsuit[edit]

In 1996, Berkoff won Berkoff vs. Burchill, a libelcivil action that he brought against Sunday Times journalist Julie Burchill after she published comments suggesting that he was 'hideously ugly'. The judge ruled for Berkoff, finding that Burchill's actions 'held him to ridicule and contempt.'[33]

Political and religious views[edit]

Berkoff has spoken and written about how he believes Jews and Israel to be regarded in Britain. In a January 2009 interview with The Jewish Chronicle, in which he discussed anti-Israel sentiment in the aftermath of the Gaza War, he said:

“There is an in-built dislike of Jews. Overt antisemitism goes against the British sense of fair play. It has to be covert and civilised. So certain playwrights and actors on the left wing make themselves out to be stricken with conscience. They say: 'We hate Israel, we hate Zionism, we don't hate Jews.' But Zionism is the very essence of what a Jew is. Zionism is the act of seeking sanctuary after years and years of unspeakable outrages against Jews. As soon as Israel does anything over the top it's always the same old faces who come out to demonstrate. I don't see hordes of people marching down the street against Mugabe when tens of thousands are dying every month in Zimbabwe.[34]”

Interviewer Simon Round noted that Berkoff was also keen to express his view that right-wing Israeli politicians, such as Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, were 'wretched'.[34] Asked if British antisemitism manifested itself in theatre, Berkoff responded: 'They quite like diversity and will tolerate you as long as you act a bit Gentile and don't throw your chicken soup around too much. You are perfectly entitled occasionally even to touch the great prophet of British culture, Shakespeare, as long as you keep your Jewishness well zipped up.'[34] Berkoff also referred to the Gaza war as a factor in writing Biblical Tales: 'It was the recent 'Gaza' war and the appalling flack that Israel received that prompted me to investigate ancient Jewish values.'[35]

Speaking to The Jewish Chronicle in May 2010, Berkoff criticised the Bible but added, 'it inspires the Jews to produce Samsons and heroes and to have pride'. Berkoff went on to say of the Talmud in the same article: 'As Jews, we are so incredibly lucky to have the Talmud, to have a way of re-interpreting the Torah. So we no longer cut off hands, and slay animals, and stone women.'[36]

In a Daily Telegraph travel article written while visiting Israel in 2007, Berkoff described Melanie Phillips' book Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within, as 'quite overwhelming in its research and common sense. It grips me throughout the journey.'[37]

In 2012, Berkoff, with others, wrote in support of Israel's national theatre, Habima, performing in London.[38]

Filmography[edit]

  • I Was Monty's Double (1958) as Minor Role (uncredited)
  • The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) as Teenage Boy (uncredited)
  • The Captain's Table (1959) (uncredited)
  • The Devil's Disciple (1959) as British Corporal (uncredited)
  • The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) as Medical Student (uncredited)
  • Konga (1961) as Student on field trip (uncredited)
  • Prehistoric Women (1967) as John
  • Vendetta for the Saint (1969) as Bertoli
  • Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) as Pankratov
  • A Clockwork Orange (1971) as Det. Const. Tom
  • The Passenger (1975) as Stephen
  • Barry Lyndon (1975) as Lord Ludd
  • Joseph Andrews (1977) as Greasy Fellow
  • McVicar (1980) as Ronnie Harrison
  • Outland (1981) as Sagan
  • Coming Out of the Ice (1982) as Atoman
  • Octopussy (1983) as General Orlov
  • Beverly Hills Cop (1984) as Victor Maitland
  • Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) as Lieutenant Colonel Sergei T. Podovsky
  • Underworld (1985) as Hugo Motherskille
  • Revolution (1985) as Sgt. Jones
  • Absolute Beginners (1986) as The Fanatic
  • Under the Cherry Moon (1986) as Mr. Sharon
  • Prisoner of Rio (1988) as Jack McFarland
  • Streets of Yesterday (1989)
  • The Krays (1990) as George Cornell
  • Flynn (1993) as Klaus Reicher
  • Decadence (1994) as Steve / Les / Helen's Couturier
  • Fair Game (1995) as Colonel Ilya Pavel Kazak
  • Love in Paris (1997) as Vittorio DaSilva
  • Legionnaire (1998) as Sgt. Steinkampf
  • Rancid Aluminum (2000) as Mr Kant
  • Beginner's Luck (2001) as Magic Bob
  • Steal (2002) as Surtayne
  • 9 Dead Gay Guys (2002) as Jeff
  • Bokshu, the Myth (2002)[39][40]
  • Headrush (2003) as The Uncle
  • Charlie (2004) as Charlie Richardson Snr
  • Head in the Clouds (2004) as Charles Bessé
  • Brides (2004) as Karabulat
  • The Headsman (2005) as Inquisitor
  • Dievu miskas (2005) as Commandant Hoppe
  • The Flying Scotsman (2006) as Ernst Hagemann
  • Pu-239 (2006) as Starkov
  • Say It in Russian (2007) as Oleg Rozhin
  • Medvezhya okhota (2007)
  • The Cottage (2008) as Arnie (uncredited)
  • Ved verdens ende (2009) as Jack Pudovski
  • 44 Inch Chest (2009) as Tippi Gordon
  • Perfect Life (2010) as The Elder
  • The Big I Am (2010) as The MC
  • Just for the Record (2010) as Mike Rosferry
  • Dead Cert (2010) as Kenneth Mason
  • Words of the Blitz (2010) as Various
  • The Tourist (2010) as Reginald Shaw
  • Moving Target (2011) as Lawrence Masters
  • Big Fat Gypsy Gangster (2011) as Guru Shah
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) as Dirch Frode
  • Strippers vs Werewolves (2012) as Flett
  • Riot (2012) as Chief Constable
  • RED 2 (2013) as Cobb
  • Decline of an Empire (2014) as Liberius
  • We Still Kill the Old Way (2014) as Charlie
  • Frankenstein Chronicles (2015) as William Blake
  • North v South (2015) as Vic Clarke
  • Remembering Nigel (2015)
  • 7 Cases (2015) as Lawson
  • Rise of the Footsoldier Part II (2015) as Dr. Flint
  • Manhattan Night (2016) as Hobbs
  • Fanged Up (2017)

References in popular culture[edit]

In the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy, struggling actor Dexter King (Jeff Goldblum) auditions unsuccessfully for an imaginary 'Berkoff play' called England, My England. In the audition, characters dressed as skinheads swear repetitively at each other and a folding table is kicked over. Afterwards, Dexter's agent Mary (Anna Massey) muses, 'I think he's probably mad ..'

'I'm scared of Steven Berkoff' is a line in the lyrics of the song 'I'm Scared' by Queen guitarist Brian May, issued on his 1993 debut solo album Back to the Light.[41] May has declared himself to be an admirer of Berkoff[42] and his wife, Anita Dobson, has appeared in several of Berkoff's plays.

References[edit]

  1. ^ abc'Steven Berkoff'. Contemporary Writers. British Council. Archived from the original on 17 July 2009. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  2. ^'Steven Berkoff'. filmreference.com. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  3. ^'Steven Berkoff'. movies.yahoo.com (Yahoo! Inc.). Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  4. ^Else Kvist. ''Normally I'm the villain' says Steven Berkoff'. Bromley Times. Archived from the original on 2 October 2012.
  5. ^Sorrel Kerbel (2003). Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century. Routledge. pp. 155–156. ISBN1-57958-313-X.
  6. ^Alan Levy (24 July 2002). 'Steven Berkoff: Caught in a web'. The Prague Post. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
  7. ^Room, Adrian (2010). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins. McFarland. p. 58.
  8. ^'Famous Personalities from Raine's Foundation School: Steven Berkoff (1948–1950)' (Press release). David A. Spencer (publicity officer), The Old Raineians' Association. Archived from the original on 11 October 2006. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
  9. ^Michael Coveney (4 January 2007). 'Steven Berkoff: The Real East Enders'. The Independent. UK. Retrieved 27 September 2008. In his latest play and in an exhibition of photographs, Steven Berkoff revisits his past in the vibrant melting-pot that was riverside London.
  10. ^ abc'Steven Berkoff'. Celebrities. hollywood.com. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  11. ^Peter Purves' autobiography 'Here's One I Wrote Earlier ..', hardback edition, Green Umbrella Publishing, page 70. ISBN978-1-906635-34-3.
  12. ^Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). 'Steven Berkoff: Rise of an 'up and coming nobody''. The Independent. London.
  13. ^Steven Berkoff, 'Free Association: An Autobiography', Faber and Faber, 1 July 1996, p.373. ISBN978-0571176083
  14. ^Aleks Sierz (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber. pp. 25–26. ISBN978-0-571-20049-8.
  15. ^'Steven Berkoff directing'. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  16. ^'South Bank 1988–1996 – Stage by Stage – National Theatre'Archived 24 December 2012 at Archive.today. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  17. ^'Past productions 1986–1990 – Past Events – National Theatre'Archived 24 December 2012 at Archive.today. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  18. ^ abSociety Of London Theatre
  19. ^'Evil roles are 'flattering''. BBC News. 1 August 2010.
  20. ^'Steven Berkoff's new play'. Tenterden Forum. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2013.Italic or bold markup not allowed in: publisher= (help)
  21. ^ abSteven Berkoff: who will dare to stage my one-man Harvey Weinstein play?. Guardian, 20 November 2018.
  22. ^'Steven Berkoff early films'. iainfisher.com.
  23. ^'tardistime.com'. tardistime.com.
  24. ^Steven Berkoff News at www.stevenberkoff.com
  25. ^Fiona Ramsay (4 August 2008). 'ITV to Air British Heart Foundation's Two-minute 'heart attack' Ad'. Media Week. BrandRepublic.com (Haymarket Group). Archived from the original on 14 August 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
  26. ^'Nightingale Theatre: Patron Steven Berkoff'. nightingaletheatre.co.uk/. Archived from the original on 25 September 2008. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  27. ^ abAnnette Pankratz (2005). 'Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance, by Robert Cross'. Modern Drama. 48 (2005): 459. doi:10.1353/mdr.2005.0035. Archived from the original on 6 August 2011.
  28. ^Total Theatre Award Past Winners. Retrieved 29 August 2012.Archived 19 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^Steven Leigh Morris, 'The 21st Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards', L.A. Weekly, 12 April 2000. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  30. ^'Berkoff's Messiah Tour Gets the Green Light', whatsonstage.com, 27 August 2001. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  31. ^'2001 recipients The Bank of Scotland Herald Angels'Archived 19 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  32. ^'Front of Berkoff Performing Arts Centre'. altoncollege.ac.uk.
  33. ^Mark Lunney and Ken Oliphant (2007). Tort Law: Text and Materials (3rd ed.). London and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 704. ISBN978-0-19-921136-4.
  34. ^ abcSimon Round, 'Interview: Steven Berkoff', The Jewish Chronicle, 22 January 2009. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
  35. ^Steven Berkoff, 'Press release for Biblical Tales', New End Theatre. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  36. ^Jessica Elgot, 'The Bible, rewritten by Steven Berkoff', The Jewish Chronicle, 21 May 2010. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  37. ^Steven Berkoff, 'A Tale of Tel Aviv', The Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2007. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  38. ^Arnold Wesker, Ronald Harwood, Maureen Lipman, Simon Callow, Louise Mensch MP, Steven Berkoff, 'Letters: We Welcome Israel's National Theatre', The Guardian, 10 April 2012. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
  39. ^Young, Deborah (13 June 2006). 'Bokshu, The Myth'. Variety. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  40. ^Warrier, Shobha (22 May 2002). 'Why can't an Indian make a film in English?'. Rediff.com. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  41. ^'Back to the Light'. Amazon.com. Retrieved 1 October 2008.
  42. ^'BRIAN'S SOAPBOX'. brianmay.com.

Sources[edit]

  • Billington, Michael. 'Happy Birthday, Steven Berkoff'. The Guardian Theatre Blog. 3 August 2007. ('The hard man with a sensitive soul is 70 today. I've always admired him as an actor, director and – above all – phenomenon.')
  • Cross, Robert. Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. ISBN0-7190-6254-3 (10). ISBN978-0-7190-6254-4 (13). (Rev. by Pankratz.) (Synopsis at Google Books, with hyperlinked table of contents and limited preview.)
  • Pankratz, Annette. Rev. of Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance. Modern Drama 48 (2005): 459–61. (Extract; Project Muse subscription required for online access to full text.)
  • Sierz, Aleks. In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber, 2001. ISBN0-571-20049-4 (10). ISBN978-0-571-20049-8 (13).
  • 'Steven Berkoff'. Contemporary Writers. British Council. Retrieved 30 September 2008.

External links[edit]

Steven Berkoff Actor

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Steven Berkoff
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  • Comprehensive Steven Berkoff website by Iain Fisher
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steven_Berkoff&oldid=914997994'
The Metamorphosis
AuthorFranz Kafka
Original titleDie Verwandlung
CountryAustria–Hungary, today Czech Republic
LanguageGerman
PublisherKurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig
Publication date
1915
TranslationThe Metamorphosis at Wikisource

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect (German ungeheures Ungeziefer, literally 'monstrous vermin'), subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered.

  • 2Characters

Plot[edit]

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a 'monstrous vermin'. He initially considers the transformation to be temporary and slowly ponders the consequences of this metamorphosis. Unable to get up and leave the bed, Gregor reflects on his job as a traveling salesman and cloth merchant, which he characterizes as an exhausting and never-ending traffic. He sees his employer as a despot and would quickly quit his job were he not his family's sole breadwinner and working off his bankrupt father's debts. While trying to move, Gregor finds that his office manager, the chief clerk, has shown up to check on him, indignant about Gregor's unexcused absence. Gregor attempts to communicate with both the manager and his family, but all they can hear from behind the door is incomprehensible vocalizations. Gregor laboriously drags himself across the floor and opens the door. The manager, upon seeing the transformed Gregor, flees the apartment. Gregor's family is horrified, and his father drives him back into his room under the threat of violence.

With Gregor's unexpected incapacitation, the family is deprived of their financial stability. Although Gregor's sister Grete now shies away from the sight of him, she takes to supplying him with food, which they find he can only eat rotten. Gregor begins to accept his new identity and begins crawling on the floor, walls and ceiling. Discovering Gregor's new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He desperately tries to save a particularly-loved portrait on the wall of a woman clad in fur. His mother loses consciousness at the sight of Gregor clinging to the image to protect it. As Grete rushes to assist his mother, Gregor follows her and is hurt by a medicine bottle falling on his face. His father returns home from work and angrily tosses apples at Gregor. One of them is lodged into a sensitive spot in his back and severely wounds him.

Gregor suffers from his injuries for several weeks and takes very little food. He is increasingly neglected by his family and his room becomes used for storage. To secure their livelihood, the family takes three tenants into their apartment. The cleaning lady alleviates Gregor's isolation by leaving his door open for him on the evenings that the tenants eat out. One day, his door is left open despite the presence of the tenants. Gregor, attracted by Grete's violin-playing in the living room, crawls out of his room and is spotted by the unsuspecting tenants, who complain about the apartment's unhygienic conditions and cancel their tenancy. Grete, who has by now become tired of taking care of Gregor and is realizing the burden his existence puts on each one in the family, tells her parents they must get rid of 'it', or they will all be ruined. Gregor, understanding that he is no longer wanted, dies of starvation before the next sunrise. The relieved and optimistic family take a tram ride out to the countryside, and decide to move to a smaller apartment to further save money. During this short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa realize that, in spite of going through hardships which have brought an amount of paleness to her face, Grete appears to have grown up into a pretty and well-figured lady, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.

Characters[edit]

Gregor Samsa[edit]

Gregor is the main character of the story. He works as a traveling salesman in order to provide money for his sister and parents. He wakes up one morning finding himself transformed into an insect. After the metamorphosis, Gregor becomes unable to work and is confined to his room for most of the remainder of the story. This prompts his family to begin working once again. Gregor is depicted as isolated from society and often misunderstands the true intentions of others.

The name 'Gregor Samsa' appears to derive partly from literary works Kafka had read. A character in The Story of Young Renate Fuchs, by German-Jewish novelist Jakob Wassermann (1873–1934), is named Gregor Samassa.[1] The Viennese author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose sexual imagination gave rise to the idea of masochism, is also an influence. Sacher-Masoch wrote Venus in Furs (1870), a novel whose hero assumes the name Gregor at one point. A 'Venus in furs' literally recurs in The Metamorphosis in the picture that Gregor Samsa has hung on his bedroom wall.[2]

Grete Samsa[edit]

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Grete is Gregor's younger sister, who becomes his caretaker after his metamorphosis. Initially Grete and Gregor have a close relationship, but this quickly fades. While Grete initially volunteers to feed him and clean his room, she grows increasingly impatient with the burden and begins to leave his room in disarray out of spite. Her initial decision to take care of Gregor may have come from a desire to contribute and be useful to the family, since she becomes angry and upset when the mother cleans his room, and it is made clear that Grete is disgusted by Gregor; she could not enter Gregor's room without opening the window first because of the nausea he caused her, and leaves without doing anything if Gregor is in plain sight. She plays the violin and dreams of going to the conservatory, a dream Gregor had intended to make happen; Gregor had planned on making the announcement on Christmas Day. To help provide an income for the family after Gregor's transformation, she starts working as a salesgirl. Grete is also the first to suggest getting rid of Gregor, which causes Gregor to plan his own death. At the end of the story, Grete's parents realize that she has become beautiful and full-figured and decide to consider finding her a husband.[3]

Mr. Samsa[edit]

Mr. Samsa is Gregor's father. After the metamorphosis, he is forced to return to work in order to support the family financially. His attitude towards his son is harsh; he regards the transformed Gregor with disgust and possibly even fear, and he attacks him on several occasions.[4]

Mrs. Samsa[edit]

Mrs. Samsa is Grete and Gregor's mother. She is initially shocked at Gregor's transformation; however, she wants to enter his room. This proves too much for her, thus giving rise to a conflict between her maternal impulse and sympathy, and her fear and revulsion at Gregor's new form.[citation needed]

The Charwoman[edit]

The Charwoman is an old lady who is employed by the Samsa family to help take care of their household duties. Apart from Grete and her father, she is the only person who is in close contact with Gregor. She is the one who notices that Gregor has died and disposes of his body.

Interpretation[edit]

Like most Kafka works, The Metamorphosis tends to entail the use of a religious (Max Brod) or psychological interpretation by most of its interpreters. It has been particularly common to read the story as an expression of Kafka's father complex, as was first done by Charles Neider in his The Frozen Sea: A Study of Franz Kafka (1948). Besides the psychological approach, interpretations focusing on sociological aspects which see the Samsa family as a portrayal of general social circumstances, have gained a large following as well.[5]

Vladimir Nabokov rejected such interpretations, noting that they do not live up to Kafka's art. He instead chose an interpretation guided by the artistic detail but categorically excluded any and all attempts at deciphering a symbolic or allegoric level of meaning. Arguing against the popular father complex theory, he observed that it is the sister, more so than the father, who should be considered the cruelest person in the story, as she is the one backstabbing Gregor. As the central narrative theme he makes out the artist's struggle for existence in a society replete with philistines that destroys him step by step. Commenting on Kafka's style, he writes: “The transparency of his style underlines the dark richness of his fantasy world. Contrast and uniformity, style and the depicted, portrayal and fable are seamlessly intertwined.”[6]

In 1989, Nina Pelikan Straus wrote a feminist interpretation of Metamorphosis, bringing to the forefront the transformation of the main character Gregor's sister, Grete, and foregrounding the family and, particularly, younger sister's transformation in the story. Traditionally, critics of Metamorphosis have underplayed the fact that the story is not only about Gregor but also his family and especially, Grete's metamorphosis as it is mainly Grete, woman, daughter, sister, on whom the social and psychoanalytic resonances of the text depend.[7]

In 1999, Gerhard Rieck pointed out that Gregor and his sister Grete form a pair, which is typical for many of Kafka's texts: It is made up of one passive, rather austere person and another active, more libidinal person. The appearance of figures with such almost irreconcilable personalities who form couples in Kafka's works has been evident since he wrote his short story Description of a Struggle (e.g. the narrator/young man and his “acquaintance”). They also appear in The Judgement (Georg and his friend in Russia), in all three of his novels (e.g. Robinson and Delamarche in Amerika) as well as in his short stories A Country Doctor (the country doctor and the groom) and A Hunger Artist (the hunger artist and the panther). Rieck views these pairs as parts of one single person (hence the similarity between the names Gregor and Grete), and in the final analysis as the two determining components of the author's personality. Not only in Kafka's life but also in his oeuvre does Rieck see the description of a fight between these two parts.[8]

Reiner Stach argued in 2004 that no elucidating comments were needed to illustrate the story and that it was convincing by itself, self-contained, even absolute. He believes that there is no doubt the story would have been admitted to the canon of world literature even if we had known nothing about its author.[9]

According to Peter-André Alt (2005), the figure of the vermin becomes a drastic expression of Gregor Samsa's deprived existence. Reduced to carrying out his professional responsibilities, anxious to guarantee his advancement and vexed with the fear of making commercial mistakes, he is the creature of a functionalistic professional life.[10]

In 2007, Ralf Sudau took the view that particular attention should be paid to the motifs of self-abnegation and disregard for reality. Gregor's earlier behavior was characterized by self-renunciation and his pride in being able to provide a secure and leisured existence for his family. When he finds himself in a situation where he himself is in need of attention and assistance and in danger of becoming a parasite, he doesn't want to admit this new role to himself and be disappointed by the treatment he receives from his family, which is becoming more and more careless and even hostile over time. According to Sundau, Gregor is self-denyingly hiding his nauseating appearance under the canapé and gradually famishing, thus pretty much complying with the more or less blatant wish of his family. His gradual emaciation and “self-reduction” shows signs of a fatal hunger strike (which on the part of Gregor is unconscious and unsuccessful, on the part of his family not understood or ignored). Sudau (p. 163-164) also lists the names of selected interpreters of The Metamorphosis (e.g. Beicken, Sokel, Sautermeister and Schwarz). According to them, the narrative is a metaphor for the suffering resulting from leprosy, an escape into the disease or a symptom onset, an image of an existence which is defaced by the career, or a revealing staging which cracks the veneer and superficiality of everyday circumstances and exposes its cruel essence. He further notes that Kafka's representational style is on one hand characterized by an idiosyncratic interpenetration of realism and fantasy, a worldly mind, rationality and clarity of observation, and on the other hand by folly, outlandishness and fallacy. He also points to the grotesque and tragicomical, silent film-like elements.[11]

Fernando Bermejo-Rubio (2012) argued that the story is often viewed unjustly as inconclusive. He derives his interpretative approach from the fact that the descriptions of Gregor and his family environment in The Metamorphosis contradict each other. Diametrically opposed versions exist of Gregor's back, his voice, of whether he is ill or already undergoing the metamorphosis, whether he is dreaming or not, which treatment he deserves, of his moral point of view (false accusations made by Grete) and whether his family is blameless or not. Bermejo-Rubio emphasizes that Kafka ordered in 1915 that there should be no illustration of Gregor. He argues that it is exactly this absence of a visual narrator that is essential for Kafka's project, for he who depicts Gregor would stylize himself as an omniscient narrator. Another reason why Kafka opposed such an illustration is that the reader should not be biased in any way before his reading process was getting under way. That the descriptions are not compatible with each other is indicative of the fact that the opening statement is not to be trusted. If the reader isn't hoodwinked by the first sentence and still thinks of Gregor as a human being, he will view the story as conclusive and realize that Gregor is a victim of his own degeneration.[12]

Volker Drüke (2013) believes that the crucial metamorphosis in the story is that of Grete. She is the character the title is directed at. Gregor's metamorphosis is followed by him languishing and ultimately dying. Grete, by contrast, has matured as a result of the new family circumstances and assumed responsibility. In the end – after the brother's death – the parents also notice that their daughter, “who was getting more animated all the time, had blossomed […] into a beautiful and voluptuous young woman”, and want to look for a partner for her. From this standpoint, Grete's transition, her metamorphosis from a girl into a woman, is the subtextual theme of the story.[13]

Translation[edit]

Dependency tree illustrating the difference in syntax between the first sentence of Kafka's The Metamorphosis in translation by Ian Johnston and in the original German

Kafka's sentences often deliver an unexpected effect just before the period – that being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is achieved from the construction of sentences in the original German, where the verbs of subordinate clauses are put at the end. For example, in the opening sentence, it is the final word, verwandelt, that indicates transformation:

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect-like creature.

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These constructions are not directly translatable to English, so it is up to the translator to provide the reader with the effect of the original text.[14]

English translators have often sought to render the word Ungeziefer as 'insect', but this is not strictly accurate. In Middle High German, Ungeziefer literally means 'unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice'[15] and is sometimes used colloquially to mean 'bug' – a very general term, unlike the scientific sounding 'insect'. Kafka had no intention of labeling Gregor as any specific thing, but instead wanted to convey Gregor's disgust at his transformation. The phrasing used by Joachim Neugroschel[16] is: 'Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin',[citation needed] whereas David Wyllie says' 'transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin'.[17]

However, in Kafka's letter to his publisher of 25 October 1915, in which he discusses his concern about the cover illustration for the first edition, he uses the term Insekt, saying: 'The insect itself is not to be drawn. It is not even to be seen from a distance.'[18]

Ungeziefer has sometimes been translated as 'cockroach', 'dung beetle', 'beetle', and other highly specific terms. The term 'dung beetle' or Mistkäfer is, in fact, used by the cleaning lady near the end of the story, but it is not used in the narration: 'At first, she also called him to her with words which she presumably thought were friendly, like ‘Come here for a bit, old dung beetle!’ or ‘Hey, look at the old dung beetle!’' Ungeziefer also denotes a sense of separation between himself and his environment: he is unclean and must therefore be secluded.[citation needed]

Vladimir Nabokov, who was a lepidopterist as well as a writer and literary critic, insisted that Gregor was not a cockroach, but a beetle with wings under his shell, and capable of flight. Nabokov left a sketch annotated, 'just over three feet long', on the opening page of his (heavily corrected) English teaching copy. In his accompanying lecture notes, Nabokov discusses the type of insect Gregor has been transformed into, concluding that Gregor 'is not, technically, a dung beetle. He is merely a big beetle'.[19]

English translations[edit]

  • 1961: Edwin Muir and Willa Muir
  • 1993: Joachim Neugroschel
  • 1996: Stanley Appelbaum
  • 1999: Ian Johnston (public domain)
    • 2006: audio by David Barnes
    • 2012: audio by David Richardson
    • 2014: audio by Bob Neufeld
  • 2002: David Wyllie
  • 2007: Michael Hofmann
  • 2009: Joyce Crick
  • 2009: William Aaltonen
  • 2014: Christopher Moncrieff
  • 2014: Susan Bernofsky
    • 2014: audio by Edoardo Ballerini
  • 2014: John R. Williams
  • 2017: Karen Reppin

Steven Berkoff Metamorphosis Script

Editions in the original German[edit]

  • First print: Die Verwandlung. In: Die Weißen Blätter. Eine Monatsschrift. (The White Pages. A Monthly). ed. René Schickele. 'Jg. 2' (1915), 'H. 10' (October), ps. 1177–1230.
  • Sämtliche Erzählungen. paperback, ed. Paul Raabe. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg 1970. ISBN3-596-21078-X.
  • Drucke zu Lebzeiten. ed. Wolf Kittler, Hans-Gerd Koch and Gerhard Neumann, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ps. 113–200.
  • Die Erzählungen. (The stories) ed. Roger Herms, original version S. Fischer Verlag 1997 ISBN3-596-13270-3
  • Die Verwandlung. with a commentary by Heribert Kuhn, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN978-3-518-18813-2. (Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek, 13: Text und Kommentar)
  • Die Verwandlung. Anaconda Verlag, Köln 2005. ISBN978-3-938484-13-5.

In popular culture[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Germany, SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg,. 'Die Geschichte der jungen Renate Fuchs von Jakob Wassermann - Text im Projekt Gutenberg'. gutenberg.spiegel.de (in German). Retrieved 11 February 2018.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  2. ^Kafka (1996, 3).
  3. ^'The character of Grete Samsa in The Metamorphosis from LitCharts The creators of SparkNotes'. LitCharts. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
  4. ^'The character of Father in The Metamorphosis from LitCharts The creators of SparkNotes'. LitCharts. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
  5. ^Abraham, Ulf. Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung. Diesterweg, 1993. ISBN3-425-06172-0.
  6. ^Nabokov, Vladimir V. Die Kunst des Lesens: Meisterwerke der europäischen Literatur. Austen - Dickens - Flaubert - Stevenson - Proust - Kafka - Joyce. FISCHER Taschenbuch, 1991, pp. 313–352. ISBN3-596-10495-5.
  7. ^Pelikan Straus, Nina. Transforming Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis Signs, 14:3, (Spring, 1989), The University of Chicago Press, pp. 651-667.
  8. ^Rieck, Gerhard. Kafka konkret – Das Trauma ein Leben. Wiederholungsmotive im Werk als Grundlage einer psychologischen Deutung. Königshausen & Neumann, 1999, pp. 104–125. ISBN978-3-8260-1623-3.
  9. ^Stach, Reiner. Kafka. Die Jahre der Entscheidungen, p. 221.
  10. ^Alt, Peter-André. Franz Kafka: Der Ewige Sohn. Eine Biographie. C.H.Beck, 2008 , p. 336.
  11. ^Sudau, Ralf. Franz Kafka: Kurze Prosa / Erzählungen. Klett, 2007, pp. 158-162.
  12. ^Bermejo-Rubio, Fernando: “Truth and Lies about Gregor Samsa. The Logic Underlying the Two Conflicting Versions in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung”. In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, Volume 86, Issue 3 (2012), pp. 419–479.
  13. ^Drüke, Volker. “Neue Pläne Für Grete Samsa.” Übergangsgeschichten. Von Kafka, Widmer, Kästner, Gass, Ondaatje, Auster Und Anderen Verwandlungskünstlern, Athena, 2013, pp. 33–43. ISBN978-3-89896-519-4.
  14. ^Kafka, Franz (1996). The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. p. xi. ISBN1-56619-969-7.
  15. ^'Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen'. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. 1993. p. 1486. ISBN3423325119.
  16. ^ISBN0-684-80070-5
  17. ^Kafka, Franz. 'Metamorphosis'. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  18. ^'Briefe und Tagebücher 1915 (Franz Kafka) — ELibraryAustria'.
  19. ^Nabokov, Vladimir (1980). Lectures on Literature. New York, New York: Harvest. p. 260.

External links[edit]

German Wikisource has original text related to this article:
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Steven Berkoff Wiki

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kafka Die Verwandlung.

Online editions

  • Die Verwandlung at DigBib.org (text, pdf, HTML) (in German)
  • The Metamorphosis, translated 2009 by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC
  • The Metamorphosis at The Kafka project, translated by Ian Johnston released to public domain
  • The Metamorphosis - Annotated text aligned to Common Core Standards
  • The Metamorphosis at Project Gutenberg, translated by David Wyllie
  • The Metamorphosis public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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