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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2011 > February > 18 > Entry
Review: “Black Watch” at the Bass Concert Hall
Even before the action starts, there’s plenty of dramatic falderal to National Theatre of Scotland’s riveting and emotionally-charged play “Black Watch,” now at UT’s Bass Concert Hall.
Ushers hand you earplugs. You’re warned there will be explosive noise. An announcer reminds that there are medical personnel available should you need them. Menacing spotlights scope the bleacher-like seats and stage area — the entirety of Bass’s 3,000-seats having been foresaken in order for all “Black Watch,” including an audience of 400, to be confined on the venue’s Broadway-sized stage.
But for all the histronic preamble (an affectation of too many a contemporary staging), “Black Watch” evolves as an sincerely thoughtful and originally felt docudrama that utterly transfixes, an ingenious and authentic portrayal of madness of modern warfare.
Written by Gregory Burke and directed by John Tiffany, “Black Watch” is woven from interviews with soldiers who served in Iraq with Scotland’s famed Black Watch regiment, a noble brigade with a 300-year-history
The restless, beer-drinking young men we see rough-talking at a pub at the play’s outset harass the self-serious interviewer there to collect information for the play he is writing — an obvious narrative device whose obviousness nevertheless melts away as the flashbacks unfold.
But soon, without warning, convention breaks.
In seamlessly unfolding scenes — some naturalistic, others dream-like and exquisitely choreographed — the terror, and boredom, of the men’s combat experience unveils. So does their post-combat reckoning of their role in war, as one says, that is not their war: “You’re not defending your country.”
To a one, the 10-member ensemble invests each moment with genuine spontaneity and each character with a subtle individuality. Whether watching — and wondering about — the village-decimating U.S. Army air-strikes or the testerone-fueled re-canting of their experiences in the pub, each deftly combined the addling mix of fear, camaraderie, confusion and isolation that modern warfare heaps upon those who must wage it.
And while Burke’s slang-infused dialogue is sharp, it’s the wordless moments and actions that ring loudest. Associate director Stephen Hoggett’s movement infuses every instance with physical poetry.
In blue light, soldiers silently read letters from home, each enacting an intimate sequence of hand signals — perhaps recalling the day-to-day actions back home. A moment of playful wrestling becomes martial ballet. And in utterly engaging scene, Cammy (Jack Lowden) is twirled by other cast members like a ceremonial staff as he recounts the 300-year history of the Black Watch regiment, all as he is dressed and undressed in historic uniforms.
In the final wordless scene, the men march ceremonially in formation yet stumble and right themselves together, lurching on, then falling apart again and again.
It’s a brilliantly apt — and heart-breaking — metaphor for the ugliness and bewilderment of the Iraqi War. Exquisitely crafted, fundamentally humane, “Black Watch” is essential theater.
“Black Watch” continues through Feb. 20. $38. See www.texasperformingarts.org for tickets.
Photo by Manuel Harlan.
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