Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Free Association: An Autobiography” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Free Association: An Autobiography

by Steven Berkoff

4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 · rating details · 5 ratings · 0 reviews

The actor, director and playwright, Steven Berkoff, recounts his childhood in London's East End, the trips up west during his teenage years, a formative year with family in the USA, his early career in showbiz, and how he drew on his experiences to write his plays.

Paperback

Published October 1st 1997 by Faber & Faber

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

Or buy for

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Free Association , please sign up .

Be the first to ask a question about Free Association

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-12 of 12)

filter | sort : default (?) | rating details

Christine Rapley rated it 4 of 5 stars
Aug 10, 2014

Teresa Sketchley added it
Mar 12, 2014

Matthew Fox rated it 4 of 5 stars
Jan 21, 2014

Maha marked it as to-read
Dec 21, 2013

Lector Inspector rated it 4 of 5 stars
Feb 09, 2013

Caz Tricks rated it 5 of 5 stars
Jan 02, 2013

Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars
Oct 09, 2012

The Honourable Husband added it
May 09, 2012

Conrad Toft marked it as to-read
Oct 15, 2011

Opuscule added it
Jun 21, 2011

Barton Young marked it as to-read
Sep 28, 2010

Jeff Wax added it
Jun 10, 2010

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

About Steven Berkoff

Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director.Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt. Col Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop, and Adolf Hitler in epic mini-series War and Remembrance.

His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metam Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director.Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt. Col Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II, Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop, and Adolf Hitler in epic mini-series War and Remembrance.

His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1969); In the Penal Colony (1969); and The Trial (1971); these complex psychological plays are said to be nightmarish and to create a disturbing sense of alienation in their audiences. In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of verse plays including: East (1975); Greek (1980); Decadence (1981); West (1983); Sink the Belgrano! (1986); Massage (1997); Sturm und Drang; and The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (2001). East, Greek and West were punk-inspired works about working class London youth based on Oedipus and Beowulf respectively.

Berkoff employs a style of heightened physical theatre known as "total theatre". Drama critic Aleks Sierz describes his Berkoff's dramatic style as "in yer face": "the language is usually filthy, characters talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes off, have sex, humiliate each another, experience unpleasant emotions, become suddenly violent. At its best, this kind of theatre is so powerful, so visceral, that it forces audiences to react: either they feel like fleeing the building or they are suddenly convinced that it is the best thing they have ever seen, and want all their friends to see it too. It is the kind of theatre that inspires us to use superlatives, whether in praise or condemnation."

According to Annette Pankratz, in her 2005 Modern Drama review of Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance, by Robert Cross, "Steven Berkoff is one of the major minor contemporary dramatists in Britain and – due to his self-fashioning as a bad boy of British theatre and the ensuing attention of the media – a phenomenon in his own right."

"I'm scared of Steven Berkoff" is a line in the lyrics of "I'm Scared" (1992), by Queen's guitarist Brian May, released on his first solo album Back to the Light (1993). Brian May has declared himself as a great admirer of Berkoff.

The Berkoff Performing Arts Centre was named for him at Alton College, in North East Hampshire on 20 June 2008. ...more

More about Steven Berkoff...

Books by Steven Berkoff

The Trial, Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony: Three theatre adaptations from Franz Kafka

Agamemnon; The Fall of the House of Usher

More…

Share This Book

Share on your website

title link	preview: Free Association: An Autobiography
avg rating	preview: Free Association: An Autobiography Goodreads rating: 4.20 (5 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1363566.Free_Association?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266783223l/1363566.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1363566.Free_Association?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Free Association: An Autobiography by Steven Berkoff[/url]