Steven Berkoff, born in 1937 in East London as the son of a family of Jewish immigrants, is a hugely influential theatre practitioner, famous today for his work on 'total' theatre, a style of theatre that uses all different elements to engage all the senses of an audience. Berkoff is not only a popular practitioner, but was also an actor, playwright and director previously, playing roles within his own plays too.

Berkoff wrote multiple plays as adaptations of the works of Kafka, so the themes of social issues, absurd circumstances and isolation run through especially in plays such as Metamorphosis. He also wrote plays in rhyme and verse, in particular East and West which focus on social issues of class. There is almost always a burden on a character - guilt, societal oppression, unfulfilled promise and more, which needs to be solved.

Berkoff has possibly the widest range of influences upon his style of theatre - Greek theatre, Kabuki theatre, Stanislavski, Brecht, Lecoq and Artaud and more. He described his own style as being 'about physicality, simplicity of communication both orally and physically.'

He worked personally with Jacques Lecoq and as a mime and physical theatre practitioner, which informed lots of his style in this way. One of the main ideas of his style he got from this mentor was the use of Greek chorus. Lots of his plays, such as the family in Metamorphosis, use characters to tell the story through narration and stylised movement as an ensemble. He believed the ensemble should be able to communicate with each other easily, and by establishing a base pulse and sometimes chorus structure (in terms of staging) they could work together well. This often included lots of stylised and physical movements, with mime and gestures to represent actions (clearly an influence of Lecoq). Lecoq himself worked with the bouffons, a group of often 5 clown-like figures that resembles a chorus, who are meant to be grotesque and unpleasant and represent the cryptos flaws of society.

His Brechtian inspiration brought about exaggerated characters whose personalities were lucid and unmissable. Similar to Brecht's gestus, Berkoff wanted his characters to be played over the top, and often had repeated actions or gestures to ground us in their character. Berkoff's theatre also often has a political or clear message. Berkoff's idea of gestus is derived from the Kabuki theatre instead. Berkoff also focused on the power of the spoken word (or kvetch) and how it can be represented, through describing a feeling or a character mie.

Further from Japanese theatre, he used jo-ha-ky to structure and pace his scenes to break away from naturalism and engage the audience more in the characters. Furthermore the use of masks and makeup to paint clear expressions and emotions is also from Greek or Japanese theatre.

Artaud also informed the cruelty and intensity of his theatre.

Berkoff's political views were mostly aligned with Marxism and therefore he believed that the working class, because of the little power they hold and their alienation from society, would rise up against the ruling class and reform as a socialist or communist society. This led to the inspiration to adapt Metamorphosis from a political point of view, but also because it resonated with him as a Jewish immigrant.