Black Watch (National Theatre of Scotland)

10 things The National Theatre of Scotland’s Production of Black Watch Brought To Mind as I Was Watching It.

1. When you enter the theatre, you hear bagpipes and drums and there is a light smoky haze with search lights moving all around the space which is set up like a basketball game, with bleachers on each side. If every piece of theatre felt like an event like this one does, we’d all be rich.
2. The announcement telling the audience there would be “staff on each side of the stage to offer medical assistance” …are we going to die?
3. All these boys are so young and cute and not one belly on them. The acting is really really good. And their accents are gorgeous. Wait, what did he just say? No bother, I’ll catch up.
4. The Black Watch, which is a battalion of soldiers from Scotland with a long storied history, used to wear kilts in battle. Wow.
5. Changing the scenery in front of the audience is the only way to do it. Blackouts=boosauce.
6. There have been, like, 8 “holy crap I am so surprised and mesmerized by this moment” moments in this show. That is about 1 every 13.125 minutes. There’s your formula, theatre companies of Chicago; do that and you are guaranteed success.
7. Every time I hear a live bagpipe I want to yell “Bagpipe! Bagpipe!” like when a kid sees a fire truck. Good thing I have learned to control that impulse because when the live bagpipe enters the scene, it’s sad.
8. What would be like to tell your family you were going to be stationed in a place known as the “Triangle of Death”?
9. The Iraq war was a terrible terrible mistake.
10. I hope everyone gets a chance to see this.

Anita Deely