Practical Activity in style of steven berkhoff?

Question

Please can you help me create his style of theatre in an activity, i have to make one up for my a-level course. Thanks

Answer 1

"In my introduction I spoke of the roller coaster effect of Berkoff’s theatrical language, in which one feels constantly transported from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and back. As I will demonstrate, the move from elevation to bathos [Ref 2-01]  or from euphemism to dysphemism is more often than not carried out in order to uncover the sublimation of sexual desire as the causal base of various ‘civilized’ practices, showing these latter to be nothing other than tropes, or distortions, of the libido. These range from the closest to the farthest, most camouflaged forms of sublimating sexual desire: from channelling it into an excessive preoccupation with certain related parts of the anatomy to transforming it into, say, a partiality for tea. In every case, the individual’s sense of his or her own identity or the identity of the Other is intimately linked to the form his or her sublimation has taken. Lyotard writes:

The libido is always cathected… always bound to figurative systems. Such figures and tropes serve equally as the blockage and the expression of the libido. The discovery that the subject is a function of figuration serves to dissimulate the fact that these very same figures, the figures of subjectivity itself, serve to dissimulate the libido and desire.  (Aesthetics of Excess 63) "

so....why not serve some tea? is that what you meant by an activity?

Answer 2

You can get hold of his plays quite easily; here is the web address for his collected works on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collected-Plays-...

Alternatively, if you have to devise the work yourself, I suggest you take a fairly simple straightforward situation and then massively over dramatise it.

You might have your best friend coming to your mum's house for dinner. Over dramatise the way your family might behave e.g. they are terribly rude, or terribly gushy, or terribly nosey and then improvise the friend's reaction - he/she might be totally outraged, or totally overwhelmed, or fall madly in love with a family member.........

Just an example for you to get you thinking.

Good luck.