He made a name for himself as an actor, but that’s only one of the hats worn by Steven Berkoff, a British dramatist of Dutch descent who also writes plays such as this one. He is considered an essential dramatist, but also a bit of an enfant terrible on the British scene. And you can see why in this play! A searing critique laden with irony, it tells the story of Helen and Steven, wealthy lovers who embrace constant pleasure, from opera to sex and from caviar to alcohol. Not even their pathetic husband and wife, who may be as bourgeois as they are, but aren’t quite the same, can spoil their fun. Biting, irreverent, hypercritical and sharp, this work by Berkoff (who, incidentally, co-starred with Joan Collins in the film adaptation) is a scathing indictment of the well-off and frivolous, of the incorrigibly rich and vapid. The lovers in the blunt, provocative script, written in free verse, are played by Carles Martínez and Míriam Alamany. 

Berkoff has toured the world with his trilogy of one-man shows (One Man, Shakespeare’s Villains and Requiem for Ground Zero) and has adapted Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Trial, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher for the stage. He has also written several other plays, in addition to poetry and even an autobiography. As an actor, you may have seen him (perhaps without realising it) in A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Absolute Beginners or... Rambo!

The staging is directed by Glòria Balañà i Altimira,[A1]  who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Stage Direction and Drama from the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona (2003) and a Master’s Degree in Theatre Studies from the UAB, IT and the UPF (2012). She is a professor of Playwriting and Directing at the Institut del Teatre and also teaches stage direction at the Obrador de Sala Beckett. At the Grec Festival, she has directed shows such as Victoria Szpunberg’s Boys Don’t Cry[A2] (Grec 2012) and Sadurní Vergés’s Els ossos de Montaigne [Montaigne’s Bones] (Grec 2022).

A 2025 Barcelona Grec Festival, Vania Produccions and Atrium Produccions co-production.