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Berkoff on FoodDavid Chadderton reports from the Edinburgh Book FestivalDateline: 19th August, 2008Actor, writer and director Steven Berkoff was visiting the Edinburgh Book Festival to talk not about theatre but about food, as featured in his book My Life In Food, but he made some interesting comparisons between eating and theatre. Firstly he made the comparison between the courses of a meal and the acts of a play, but he also spoke of how food used to be more associated with going to the theatre, when spectators would eat while watching a play, whereas this has now been transferred to cinema with its popcorn and hot-dogs and theatre audiences are expected to be silent and attentive. He likes the tradition, particularly in London theatres, of audiences going to watch a play and then going to a restaurant afterwards to eat and discuss what they have seen. As an actor, he associates eating with having got through a show, particular during the early performances of a difficult part when the meal is something to look forward to at the end. Food also plays a big part in many plays, and Berkoff believes that great writers use food extremely well as a metaphor for what else is happening in the drama; he particularly paid tribute to the way Tennessee Williams uses food, talked about how food is littered throughout Shakespeare's plays and mentioned Pinter's The Birthday Party and Wesker's Chicken Soup With Barley and The Kitchen. Despite some obvious vocal problems, Berkoff talked solidly for 40 minutes before any questions were asked by chairman Al Senter or the audience. He told us about his early food memories and the roots of the food he loved in Jewish and Romanian cultures and treated us to some very funny impressions to show how the people in certain cultures become like an animal that is particularly significant to them: Jews and chickens, 'buffalo' (i.e. the North American bison) and the John Wayne-type cowboys in old Westerns, the French and the pig and the British hunting upper classes and their yapping terriers. He told stories about some of his food-related experiences as an actor, filming Prince's Under the Cherry Moon in Cannes and performing Oscar Wilde's Salomé in New York, and dismissed dinner theatre as something created because Americans cannot endure two hours of theatre without eating. He believes that the best experience of theatre can be had if spectators do not eat before the performance — even all day — and then discuss the performance over a good restaurant dinner afterwards. David Chadderton
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