The Trial & Metamophosis & In the Penal Colony

In the Penal Colony was Berkoff's first professional production, performed at London's experimental theatre, the Arts Lab, Drury Lane, in 1968. It is a strange tale of torture and suffering featuring a macabre machine so fiendish and diabolical that it could have been designed in hell

The Trial was first presented at the Oval House in 1970. It's the story of Joseph K. struggling in the abyss of self-doubt. A ludicrous parable investigating every contingency and nuance of the law

"It is the nightmarish quality of The Trial that has fascinated Berkoff for years ... In Berkoff's hands, the story offers wonderful opportunities for playfulness and clowning, but he is also the master manipulator of dark and painful nerves which are set a-jangling all through the psyche" ~ Clare Bayley, What's On

"[Berkoff] tackles resiliently many of the problems involved in translating Kafka's study of guilt, solitude and nightmarish entrapment to the stage ... [he] comes up with his own clear vision of Kafka's novel: as a study of a man whose external trial embodies his own internal guilt" ~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

His adaptation of Metamorphosis, in which he originally played the part of Gregor, was first produced at the Round House in 1969. Gregor, the Untermensch, is gradually transformed into an insect which his family reject, then tolerate, then loathe, and finally destroy by neglect

"Kafka's novella Metamorphosis (1913) is a pretty gruelling affair ... In Steven Berkoff's brilliant stage adaptation ... it becomes more searing still" ~ Christopher Grier, London Standard

"A powerful, yet vividly funny, version of Kafka's dark fantasy pointing out that human beings will inevitably become the thing they are treated as" ~ Jack Tinker, Daily mail