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I have gathered as much as I could on Bruce's stage career. If you have any further information on Bruce's Stage Life please let me know.
TIME, June 20, 1983 ~West~ London, theater reviews Review Grade: A- West by Steven Berkoff. A Berkoff play (Greek, Metamorphosis, Hamlet) is simultaneously avant-garde and deja vu. Actors in whiteface mime extravagant gestures, confronting the audience with stylized, scatological invective. It is like being back in the rumble seat of '60s performance art, but with a raw poetic urgency. Other English playwrights may update Shaw; Berkoff wants to be an East End blend of Sam Shepard and Jean Genet. West, the first of his plays to infiltrate the West End, can be seen as a new West Side Story. Mike (Rory Edwards), leader of a quintet of Hackney toughs, challenges a rival gang boss to one-on-one combat and just barely lives to tell the tale. Berkoff's twist: Mike and every other character speak in iambic pentameter. Will the rival boss kick Mike in the crown? "Balls! Were he Al Capone I'd pluck 'im down." This is the Theater of Too Much-- a hothouse of voluptuous imagery where the adventurous playgoer can find weird refuge. As director, Berkoff has molded his performers (including Edwards and the frighteningly dynamic Bruce Payne) until they are as mean and disciplined as an inner-city basketball team ready for the playground playoffs. Berkoff's work is not for everyone; but for audacious originality, he is the top boy in contemporary British theater. Steven Berkoff was
on La Femme Nikita! He played Madeline's long lost husband
in that episode where she shot him dead. Also, he was
in Absolute Beginners with Bruce. He was that older Nazi
guy at the rally who made the racist speech towards the
end of the movie.
1988 Greek (in London) - by Steven Berkoff.
Cast: Bruce Payne (Eddy and Fortune-teller), Steven Berkoff (Dad and Manager of Cafe), Gerogia Brown (Mum, Sphinx, and Waitress 2), Gillian Eaton (Wife, Doreen, and Waitress 1). Director: Steven Berkoff Performed at Wyndham's Theatre/ West End, June 29th, 1988
1984 Alice - directed by Nicholas Hytner - Leeds Playhouse - CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT ALICE - 198? PIAF - York Theatre Royal
198? Midsummer Night's Dream - Nottingham Play House 198? Julius Caesar - Shaw Playhouse 198? The Rocky Horror Show - Bruce played Dr. Frank'N'Furter (Tim Curry played Dr. Frank'N'Furter in the 1975 film version).
Directed WEST - Starring Adam Ant - Produced at the Mark Taper Form, LA
Click on above photo to read more about the Berkoff plays and programmes! PLAYS & PLAYERS Magazine from AUGUST 1988 Here is what the reviewer for Greek had to say about Bruce's performance: Bruce Payne 's Eddie disgorges his bile with bravado, reminding you that on occasion, being harangued can yeild up thrilling theatre....
STEVEN
BERKOFF ON HIS PLAY WEST
West was first performed at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden, in May 1983. That was its world premiere, although I believe a version was performed in Wagga Wagga, Australia, three years before, in 1980. But they had tampered with the text and even included a scene from East, thus disqualifying themselves from being the first to present West. East, my play about the East End from a young hero's point of view, was the first of a series which, naturally, inspired West. The BBC actually commissioned it and then found it not quite dull enough for television - much to my delight, as I was then able to stage it at a later date. Limehouse Productions and Ian Albery sponsored its first showing in London, and Limehouse have filmed it for television at the time of writing, so I hope that as West played before its thousands, it will soon play before its millions. West is about courage: the courage to live according to your spirit and not the guidelines laid down for you by others, to be true to yourself, which may involve alienating others, but your truth is worth pursuing since it defines who you are. It shapes, forges and hones you into something that is not vague but clear-cut and definite. Mike's truth is to live for simple principles and to put his courage where his mouth is. He defeats the Hoxton monster and will continue to fight monsters so that others can rest safe in their beds. While the play is an allegory about demons we must defeat, it is also about an area of time and space called London and, specifically, Stamford Hill or Hackney, N16. You wore tailored suits and strutted your gear at the Lyceum, Strand, on Sunday nights. Movements were short, percussive and cool - Oscar Rabin led the band, Lita Rosa sang and the Kray twins would stand and survey their domain. I never saw them dance. Stamford Hill stood at the crossroads of Tottenham, Dalston and Hoxton and was subject to attacking forays from many directions. Such skirmishes were few, but I remember when, instead of sending a gang each time, Tottenham would send, symbolically, one of their toughest fighters to come and spread terror and challenge our leader. There was one young man from Stamford Hill who somehow elected himself to take on each one, and he did in fact beat them all. He was a frightening cur who actually put his fist through doors for practice. His name was Harry Lee. Mike is not based on a hero but is an amalgam of feelings that I had at the time and my observations of the environment. © Steven Berkoff, 1994 West 'Raw, poetic energy ... a hothouse of voluptuous imagery . . . for audacious originality . Berkoff is the top boy in contemporary British theatre.' Time Magazine
STEVEN BERKOFF ON HIS PLAY GREEK Greek came to me via Sophocles, trickling its way down the millennia until it reached the unimaginable wastelands of Tufnell Park - a land more fantasised than real, being an amalgam of the deadening war zones that some areas of London had become. Tufnell Park was just a word to play with - like our low comedians play with the sound of East Cheam for example - so no real offence to the inhabitants. In my eyes, Britain seemed to have become a gradually decaying island, preyed upon by the wandering hordes who saw no future for themselves in a society which had few ideals or messages to offer them. The violence that streamed through the streets, like an all-pervading effluence, the hideous Saturday night fever as the pubs belched out their dreary occupants, the killing and maiming at public sports, plus the casual slaughtering of political opponents in Northern Ireland, bespoke a society in which an emotional plague had taken root. It was a cold place in my recollection, lit up from time to time by the roar of the beast - the beast of frustration and anger, whose hunger is appeased by these revolving scraps, which momentarily dull its needs. We were the world's greatest video watchers, since we had lost the ability to speak to each other. We sat like zombies, strangled in our attempts to communicate, feeding off the flickering tube like patients wired to support systems. Oedipus found a city in the grip of a plague and sought to rid the city of its evil centre represented by the Sphinx. Eddy seeks to reaffirm his beliefs and inculcate a new order of things with his vision and life-affirming energy. His passion for life is inspired by the love he feels for his woman, and his detestation of the degrading environment he inherited. If Eddy is a warrior who holds up the smoking sword as he goes in, attacking all that he finds polluted, at the same time he is at heart an ordinary young man with whom many I know will find identification. The play is also a love story. In writing my 'modern' Oedipus it wasn't too difficult to find contemporary parallels, but when I came to the 'blinding' I paused, since in my version it wouldn't have made sense, given Eddy's non-fatalistic disposition, to have him embark on such an act of self-hatred - unless I slavishly aped the original. One day a friend gave me a book to read which provided an illumination to my problem in an almost identical situation. The book is called Seven Arrows by Hyemeyohsts Storm. It contains a passage of such tenderness and simplicity that I was immediately given the key to my own ending: 'How is it. Hawk,' I asked him, 'that I should not make love to Sweet Water, my mother?' 'Do you love her?' he asked me. I answered, 'Yes, more than anyone else . . . But. . . children of such a love are born wrong.' 'Have you ever seen one of these children?' asked Night Bear. 'No, I have not. And I have never known anyone who has.'. .. 'Then it is like everything else ... It seems an easy thing to hear when a son kills someone, even his mother, but it is hard on people's ears when they hear of a son loving his mother.' © Steven Berkoff, 1994 |
