ABSTRACT
Steven Berkoff, a provocative theatre man, is a director, an actor and a writer. His plays are based on literary models. In some of his satirical plays, East, West, Decadence, Greek, Kvetch, he creates a grotesque world. His outrageous use of language is a festive celebration of the forces of life. Breaking the ultimate taboo of incest is a way of historicizing ancient myths, in order to expose the artificiality of taboos and of the repressive rules imposed by society. In his adaptations of Kafka's stories, Metamorphosis and The Penal Colony, of Edgar Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher", as well as in his production of Oscar Wilde's Salome, Berkoff's use of the body is a way of laying bare the lethal mechanisms of modern mythologies and of the narcissistic society of the spectacle. Language and body make up Berkoff's theatricality. His dramatic art is a mythical journey back to origins.
