The National Theatre of
Scotland’s Black Watch is an astonishing
artistic whirlwind that
is utterly international in its approach.
The world must see this play: Immediately.
- The Herald (Scotland)
Never before seen in Canada, Black Watch has been stunning audiences around the world since its critically acclaimed debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. So profound has been the artistic, political and social impact of this extraordinary work that one British critic called it "the first landmark cultural event of the 21st century."
The National Theatre of Scotland
tracked down some of the
former soldiers who
served with the legendary Scottish regiment in
Iraq. Upon their return to Scotland over
the course of several months and countless pints
of Guinness, playwright Gregory Burke got the
men to open up about their experiences. The
stories they told, as well as the way they told
them, have been woven into a dazzling tapestry
of warfare, as seen through the eyes of this
now-fading regiment.
Black Watch
transports its audience from a pub in central
Scotland to the blistering desert plains south
of Baghdad, as it follows an armoured car crew
on their odyssey into the outer reaches of human
experience. The staging for Black
Watch divides the audience into two groups
sitting on opposite sides of a long, wide
runway. According to a director’s statement, the
intention was to recreate the seating
arrangement of a drill hall.
Winner of the 2007 Writers' Guild Award for Best
Theatre Play, Black Watch is theatre at
its most shattering, its most harrowing, its
most savagely funny. This is the kind of theatre
that brings you leaping to your feet, or stuns
you into silence - the kind of theatre you might
not encounter more than once in a lifetime.
"They
were every soldier; they were also
irreducibly themselves. This exquisitely
sustained double vision makes Black Watch
one of the most richly human works of art to
have emerged from
this long-lived war."
The
New York Times - 24/10/07
"Rarely has the torpor, the
tension, the nerve-shattering randomness of
this conflict's violence been made so
agonizingly real - in real time. Black Watch
is like a dose of caffeine delivered
directly to the bloodstream."
The Washington
Post - 3/11/07
"Theatre can do things that film and
television cannot. Black Watch, with its
intense theatricality, potent inventiveness,
superlative production values and visceral
immediacy, is a dazzling case in point. This
is a gripping piece of theatre that leaves
you gutted."
Sunday Telegraph 20/1/08
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