GODBER GIVES HIS TRUTH ABOUT WORKING CLASS

“It’s a kaleidoscopic, slightly scatological point of view on the opportunities available to the working classes,” said British playwright John Godber of his “Bouncers,” a taut ensemble piece (now playing at the Tiffany), which won the Best Comedy award at the 1984 Edinburgh Festival.

On the phone from England, Godber, 30, emphasized that a certain amount of ugliness is inherent: “It’s offensive because it’s the truth, and some truths offend. I don’t write about how I’d like to see the working class; I write about how they are . Some people find that politically distasteful. They feel we shouldn’t paint the working classes in their drunkenness or their euphoria or their silliness.”

Godber, however, cares more for style and content than convention.

“I want to make exciting theater. I think it should break the fourth wall, be actor-based, challenge television--in the fact that it’s even quicker, can juxtapose images, change locations in the imagination of the audience” (as “Bouncers” does, with its acting quartet moving from a rap dance to multiple roles in multiple settings in and around a London disco).

Although he relies heavily on display, Godber is confident that the realities of England’s working-class discos will translate easily to American audiences: “It’s the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ syndrome, the expectation of going out, dressing up, being a good dancer. I think if (audiences) find it humorous it’s because we relate it to ourselves, parts of truths in ourselves.”

Stylistically, “Its theatricality evolved from the concept of having four actors play all the parts. The reason for that was that the people who commissioned me to write it could only afford four actors.”

Trained as a drama teacher, Godber wrote his first play in 1979 and, in 1984, took over as artistic director of the Hull Truck Traveling Theatre, where he’s presented a collection of personal work, including the mining-themed “Happy Jack” and “September in the Rain,” “Blood, Sweat and Tears” (on judo) and “Crumbs” (on body-building).

“I come from a very physical, working-class area” (West Yorkshire, “the center of the mining community”), he explained. “That’s part of my makeup. I’m convinced that no one took me seriously when I was teaching because of my qualifications; they took me seriously because of my size (’17 stone’ or 238 pounds).”

Other social nuisances include not having attended Oxford or Cambridge universities--and his relatively tender age: “I get a lot of sniping about that.”

Certainly he’s been a colorful target. Having written one play yearly for the company (“though now that we’ve set the house style, we’ll be commissioning work from other playwrights”), Godber’s self-appraised “free, open, fun and--I think--unpretentious approach to theater” has resulted in variety of subjects and styles, from the very naturalistic “Blood” to the stark and radical “Bouncers.”

Nowadays, television also beckons. After an earlier stint as a soap opera writer, Godber is currently working on a series based on “Bouncers”--blending “the sort of realism elements of a lot of telly drama with the stylization of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ ”

As far as theatrical styles, Godber has often been compared to fellow Englishman Steven Berkoff.

“I’ve not been influenced by him at all,” he stressed. “I wrote ‘Bouncers’ before I ever saw a Steven Berkoff play. And I like his work very much. But he’s more word-based than I am, more verbose. More overwritten, I think.

“If there’s a clue to my work, it has to be about production. The theater is about what is produced . Not the text, but a living, breathing, three-dimensional organism that exists on the stage.”

From a personal perspective, “I’m taking myself more seriously,” he said, “beginning to use the academic background I’ve got and also the natural humorous side--create something from that marriage. But I’m only taking myself more seriously as a writer. It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to write more serious work.”