Berkoff and a slight bit of rudeness

It was getting towards the end of Steven Berkoff's rough and ready speech on Monday night at the Seymour Centre, when a figure appeared from the back row, making his way down to one of the Q&A microphones.

Berkoff was thrown upon seeing the man. With matted hair, large black clothes and a touch of grime, it looked as though he had walked in off the street.

"Awwrriiigghhht, mate?!" Berkoff barked to the figure as another more cleanly kept audience member asked a stumbling, mumbling blah blah blah question from the other side of the auditorium.

As the figure situated himself firmly in front of the microphone and patiently waited for his turn, Berkoff turned to the compare and asked, "Who is this geezer?!"

It was an amazing scene, particularly for a man who had proclaimed at the very beginning of his speech that part of the joys of the arts is we want to see, hear and experience the 'madmen, the lunatics, the deviants and the fringes of society'.

For finally it was the geezer's turn and sure enough, the man opened his mouth delivering a most eloquent question to the rattled thespian, despite his less than clean attire.

Berkoff was undone. He had been shown up in his own game - for theatre is about illusion, is it not?

It was characteristic of his speech as a whole. Gaping big holes of inconsistencies and contradictions but the man is still as passionate, as out-spoken and as inspiring as he ever was.

Upon seeing him he appears a lot larger and a lot rounder than you generally see in promotional shots of him but those trademark ears and small round head are unmistakeable. And so to is his voice which traverses that wiry bridge often found in British actors between educated RP and the working class familial.

The topic of conversation was risk, limitations and boundaries of the arts. Central to his rough thesis was that there should be absolutely no limitations on the arts or on artists.

Using Bill Henson as a starting point, he railed against those that impose censorship due to what he called 'merely a matter of taste'.

He argued that the same people who call for limitations on the arts are one and the same with those that call for limitations on science and scientists - the fundamentalists, the religious right - they are, to him, more similar to "fascists" than anything else.

Exasperated, he asked the very simple question - why would you put limitations on science and why would you put limitations on the imagination.

It is clear that the man despairs for the world and is totally outraged at what is going on in the United States ('something like 3000 schools teach creationism! It's unbelievable') and he despairs for those within society who put limitations on what we can and can't see. They are, to his mind, the 'limited' ones.

Despite this, it was interesting to note his total intolerance to violence being shown on stage and screen. Targeting Quentin Tarantino he yearns for theatre and film to rediscover its unique ability to escape realist interpretation and to find more creative ways to use symbols. He particularly dislikes realist violence on the stage and draws inspiration from the ancient Greeks who would keep the violence off-stage (ob-scene).

The most interesting part of the evening was when he was asked a question from the audience about the state of Australian theatre. To his mind he doesn't understand why we don't put on the classics with more of our flavour, style and unique outlook on the world.

This particularly struck a chord with many in the audience.

All this constant effort, particularly from the Independent sector in Sydney to ALWAYS put on new work probably needs to be re-thought and more effort placed on re-discovering the classics and opening up the channels of our unique culture.

At the moment, the best theatre in Sydney is from the ones that are delivering productions with simplicity. The ones that honour the words, the ones that listen to the tone and the ones that tell the story. But above all, by those that are passionate about the play and who disregard the critics and the bondage of marketing.

There are four types of theatre productions prevalent in Sydney that are like a blanket of Beijing smog making us all choke and splutter; productions put on because theatres believe that is what 'we want to see', plays put on by actors (aka 'audition theatre'), productions with a design budget that outnumbers the amount of words in the script, and productions putting on new Australian work just for the sake of it.

The amount of times I see directors forgetting the simple process of directing actors and directing the action is too often to be healthy. So wrapped up in a new Aussie theatre piece or bogged down by the design, they forget the beautiful theatrical simplicity of actors in space telling a romping good tale.

If only we had a passion to really get our hands dirty and pull out the stops on a bit more Shakespeare, a bit more Moliere, a bit more Beckett, a bit more Shaw, a bit more Ionesco et al and it might give us the time to discover that simplicity again, worry less about creating a 'good script' and get the story telling out there.

Recently Barrie Kosky had one of his rants in The Australian that also touched on some of these issues;

"I think one of the hardest things for a young director to develop is the skill to be able to create with your own voice," he says. "To be able to take the idea and create mise en scene that is truthful for you and is in your voice." He believes this cannot be taught or given. "You either can or you can't, but you can only find this voice through risk, through experience and through intellectual rigour and brutal self-criticism." All of which is lacking, he believes, in Australia's theatre scene.

I can already hear the moans and groans of the local industry. "More cringe, more Kosky rants, leave us alone".

But the man is right. For Sydney at least.

"The problem is director drought. Ask any of the good actors or designers in the country," he says soulfully. "(Most) directors have no idea about space; no idea about the actor's body; no idea of rhythm; no idea of the contrapuntal movement of body, sound, light and image; and no idea about why the f..k they want people to buy a ticket and sit through an evening of their work."

A lot of directors in Sydney behave like wanna-be designers, or worse, film directors. All that realism placed on the stage with scant regard to what is actually happening with the actors. They spend most of their time worrying about the effect rather than the process. It drives me to despair.

Which is part of the beauty of Berkoff's work. It's simple and it explores the magic that can be delivered with the human and people in space. It draws its theatricality from the physical, not the mechanical and quite frankly, we want a bit more of that don't we?