Black Watch

Did you know we're still trying to figure out dinosaur skin? What the texture was, what the colors were? Jurassic Park aside, we really have no idea what they even sounded like. We have guesses based on the fossilized remains, but when you only have petrified organic tissue there's a lot left to the imagination.

Sometimes a script is just that: an artifact, a fossil record of an original production. You can see the impression of the work, the outlines of it in print ... but you'll never know how it breathed, how it sounded, or what its skin looked like. The beautiful script of The National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch is just such an artifact: tantalizing, but maddeningly incomplete.

The National Theater of Scotland has no home. Which is really a beautiful idea for a national theatre: it exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It stages site-specific work throughout Scotland, and Black Watch was created for an Officer Training Corps drill hall at the University of Edinburgh. In a style that flashes from naturalism to hallucinatory it tells the story of the legendary Black Watch regiment, and one particular squad's time in Iraq.

In talking about The Guys last week, I talked about "the shock of the real". I wish I knew how to define it better, but Black Watch has it in spades. These soldiers don't necessarily break stereotypes: They are crude practical jokers with an abundance of testosterone and a shortage of self-control. But though Burke's not reinventing the wheel in their characterization, his detailed observation of them leads to characters that feel lived in. They speak with their own voices, and though there's definitely a political point, they are never used as mouthpieces. Flowing through silent physical scenes and surreal stagecraft, it retains the feel of a surreal documentary.

While I'm sure in production the squad takes on a full life, that doesn't appear on the page. In a way, it's part of what makes the play so compelling: these men are not falsely differentiated with character hooks. We don't have "the rookie", "the drunk", "the stamp collector" (or whatever ... you get the point). Burke wisely trusted his acting company to give these men life on the stage, but those subtle pieces of characterization don't appear in the text. And since it is largely a character-driven piece, it requires a lot of work on the reader's part to keep the men distinct. Black Watch doesn't have a full life of its own past the fossil record. It works best as a glimpse of a show that I'll likely never get to see, and definitely has planted an itch that won't get scratched without seeing the full production. With its complexity and specificity, it's a far cry from the facile liberalism of The Guys, and an excellent example of a theatre responding to "The State We're In".

I just want to take a moment to talk about the book itself. Unlike many scripts, this is clearly a record of one specific production. There are introductory pieces from the playwright, director, and artistic director. There are full page color photographs that are explicitly referred to in the stage directions (e.g. 'See Picture 2'). It's a wonderful attempt to capture a theatrical moment in print, and I wish we saw more of this in American play publishing. Yes, scripts can be literature. But before that, they are part of a specific theatre event and it's wonderful to read them as such.

Next Week: Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks

Yes, I know. Seemingly missing the zeitgeist by not having scheduled that post for today. However, I plan to read it today/tomorrow, which is infinitely more rewarding than a scheduled post.