Berkoff met the press this hot, stuffy afternoon, and held his audience in thrall even before stepping on stage. Known for his maverick ways, his passion for theatre and his outspokenness, Berkoff had everyone in splits with his acerbic wit. ``Slovenly bastards, filthy white trash... employed by slum-rotting minds, yellow-faced simpering turd(s)... (with a) loathsome, round, spotted, ugly, flaccid, face, licked his master's arse... and stank of bullshit.....'' A sample of his views on directors, quoted from his book Graft: Days of an Actor, the tale of Harry, an actor who has everything but the opportunity.

``Directors are people who've never acted, and so they don't understand the actor. They rely on other factors to snagattention. These days you have revolving stages with smoke and steam and what not, and the poor actor can barely find his way around, tripping over wires getting there! It's a lot like finding a trainer who has never boxed before for a boxer. Give the actor a stage, and he'll do his role. Give it to the director, and he'll tell you he wants 24 sets, and props, and 50 costume changes. Get rid of them, I say. They use so much money, and have no imagination!'' sneered Berkoff. And donning the director's cap and touring with a troupe was `a painful exercise, he said.

Actors, naturally, were glorified. ``Please allow me one minute of your time, because I have given 40 ****ing years of mine...'' cries Harry, who was offered the role of playing the hind legs of a donkey for a children's pantomine. ``The actor should take over, because it is important to remember that it is he who the audiences come to see. Now, more than before, the actor has been taken away like some errant juvenile delinquent,'' ragedBerkoff.

The actor who has drawn rave reviews for his varied acts of evil felt that all his villains were ``People of considerable energy and dynamism, who have found no other way to express themselves except in their negative side.'' And Berkoff's reply to why he was so attracted to the villainous side of characters was pat: ``Would a surgeon be fascinated with a scratch? It's what you see beneath the surface.''

And upon his depiction of Hamlet as a villain, which has been commented upon worldwide, Berkoff says that "Hamlet was a villain by default. He spent so much of his time in the hems and haws and fiddle and faddles, and remained so permanently indecisive, that in the process, people lost their lives. Does that not give him shades of negativity?"

``India is a place I feel familiar with, though this is the first time I'm here. People are sensitive, feeling and passionate, and the surroundings just grow on you. Strange, but I'm even trying to speak with your accent,'' he mused.

Every facet ofShakespeare's drama was worthy of special attention, he felt.