well, its a bit more long winded than the movie one, but last piece of theatre, it can be both dance, drama and opera, and a score out of ten.
Me?
Black watch
the barbican theatre in london hosted the national scottish theatre's production of Black watch, a Edinburgh festival smash hit. The story is set in Iraq, and follows the infamous regiments swansong in the hot desert, fighting for pride, porn and petrol. It is not for the faint of heart, with enough coarse language to make Billy connelly himself say "steady on" and a sension of some extremely harrowing moments, like when a man almost gets his arm broken for not understanding, or when three members of the squad are blown up by a road-side bomb. But if you can stand the gore, the shouting, the swearing and the scottish pride, then this is a true gem of a play, with moments I garuntee you will start to quote, like "The most important tool in the army is the piece of paper", or "Toby-tagging".
What it does is portray the army as a brutal fighting force. What it does well, however, is to say that under that brutality, they are just ordinary people, and with just as clear conscience as the rest of us. A Quote, and I think this is particularly true for the situation then, is
From a technical stand point, the play is marvelous, scene changes are fluent and sustinct, the lighting is incredibly atmospheric, and the sound is good as well. The staging, also, is really interesting, as it is a "Transverse" set, where there are two sections of seats facing each other, and the stage is at the centre, forcing the performer to act to both sides, and eliminating the problem of upstage, downstage. A really ingenius set up which takes probably hours of practices in order to do.
My only slight gripe about it would be lack of civilian face that was shown in the play, as it was all White working class scottish lads, a middle aged scottish white working class sergeant and their convinent white middle-class surrey-born commander. However, this was a play about THE ARMY, and not its effect that it had on people, but rather its effect it had on itself.
Score: 8/10
Me?
Black watch
the barbican theatre in london hosted the national scottish theatre's production of Black watch, a Edinburgh festival smash hit. The story is set in Iraq, and follows the infamous regiments swansong in the hot desert, fighting for pride, porn and petrol. It is not for the faint of heart, with enough coarse language to make Billy connelly himself say "steady on" and a sension of some extremely harrowing moments, like when a man almost gets his arm broken for not understanding, or when three members of the squad are blown up by a road-side bomb. But if you can stand the gore, the shouting, the swearing and the scottish pride, then this is a true gem of a play, with moments I garuntee you will start to quote, like "The most important tool in the army is the piece of paper", or "Toby-tagging".
What it does is portray the army as a brutal fighting force. What it does well, however, is to say that under that brutality, they are just ordinary people, and with just as clear conscience as the rest of us. A Quote, and I think this is particularly true for the situation then, is
From a technical stand point, the play is marvelous, scene changes are fluent and sustinct, the lighting is incredibly atmospheric, and the sound is good as well. The staging, also, is really interesting, as it is a "Transverse" set, where there are two sections of seats facing each other, and the stage is at the centre, forcing the performer to act to both sides, and eliminating the problem of upstage, downstage. A really ingenius set up which takes probably hours of practices in order to do.
My only slight gripe about it would be lack of civilian face that was shown in the play, as it was all White working class scottish lads, a middle aged scottish white working class sergeant and their convinent white middle-class surrey-born commander. However, this was a play about THE ARMY, and not its effect that it had on people, but rather its effect it had on itself.
Score: 8/10
