Theatre

In 2004, artistic director Vicky Featherstone had the inspired idea to ask playwright Gregory Burke to follow the story of the Black Watch – the 300-year-old regiment whose amalgamation with other regiments was announced just as 800 troops were moved from the relative safety of Basra to the extreme danger of Camp Dogwood, near Baghdad, replacing 4,000 Americans. The resulting National Theatre of Scotland show, directed by John Tiffany, mixes realism and a multi-layered theatricality as it switches between Iraq, where three soldiers are killed, and a pub in Fife – the heartland of the Black Watch – where a group of ex-soldiers are quizzed by an interviewer, as Burke must have interviewed ex-soldiers himself. London is a landmark in the itinerary of any touring company, even a Scottish one, but the real test was passed when the play was applauded in Glenrothes in Fife, watched by those who know the regiment well, including the families of those who die in the play.
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Burke and Tiffany were determined to tell the soldiers’ stories truthfully: to show them as human beings with gallows humour and the ability to survive both bombardments and boredom, whose first loyalty is to the regiment and each other. The most faithful route of all might have been verbatim theatre in which every word on stage would have been taken from the interviews, but Tiffany decided against that. ‘We certainly set out,’ says Tiffany, ‘to capture the real stories and the texture of what those lads told us, but my take on verbatim is that just because it’s real doesn’t make it dramatic. You’ve got a responsibilty to shape it into something more entertaining. And we wanted the freedom to create our own characters so that the people who spoke to us didn’t have to take responsibility for what we were saying.’

Fade to black: military-precision hair (© Colin Mearns/The Herald)

Some realistic elements were essential. Above all, the ten actors had to make convincing soldiers. This job largely fell to Steven Hoggett of Frantic Assembly, who brought in a drill sergeant to help him. ‘This was the task I was most afraid of,’ Hoggett confesses. ‘Because few of the actors had any movement experience and they all had to pass as someone who had done a minimum of 16 weeks’ military training and spent a couple of years out in the desert. And I knew that if I was in the audience, I would be looking for the actor who didn’t quite cut it.’

A severe haircut and combats helped. Plus a three-hour workout every morning. Eventually, the drill sergeant was so pleased with them that he marched them out to a public square to show off their skills. Hoggett believes that the most important thing they learned from the military man was his attitude. ‘Everything had to be precise, there was no room for discussion. Your foot is either absolutely in line with the crease down your trousers, or it’s completely wrong.’ That precision not only heightens the realism of the play, but also contributes to the athletic movement that is an important part of the show.

Ten-hut! Army training has aided the actors (© Manuel Harlan)

There’s no doubt that the actors did, as Tiffany says, ‘find their inner soldier’. But it’s the non-naturalistic aspects of the show that make the biggest impact. These moments recall the work of the socialist Scottish company 7.84 and its seminal production ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ in 1973. ‘Black Watch’, which starts as if it is aping Edinburgh’s Military Tattoo, includes elements of vaudeville. The whole history of the regiment is told in a single number in which a soldier is dressed in the different regimental uniforms, and tossed around by his mates as if he’s a mannequin. There are also surreal moments, such as when a knife unexpectedly rips through the baize of a pub pool table, and the ghosts of the three soldiers who are killed push their way through from below, accompanied by snippets from the ‘Today’ programme on which Geoff Hoon and Alex Salmond respond to the deaths.

Hoggett’s choreography, the videos created by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer, the music by Davey Anderson drawing on traditional songs and the sound design by Gareth Fry all explore the emotions the soldiers avoided. ‘They wouldn’t talk about vulnerability and loneliness,’ says Tiffany. ‘Any time you strayed into that territory, they would say, “It’s my job.” ’ Hoggett was influenced by a photograph showing a soldier reading a letter from home; he transformed it into a sequence in which the soldiers read their letters and use sign language to express their yearning for human comfort. Sometimes the videos are a reminder of the reality of life in the camp, punctuating the movement on stage, but they also introduce an atmosphere of surveillance.

Dye in their boots: gory props keep it real (Colin Mearns/The Herald)

The deaths of the three Black Watch soldiers, whose story is told, were recorded by the insurgents and shown on Al Jazeera, but, hardly surprisingly, this is not shown. ‘What quickly became apparent,’ says Grimmer, ‘was that all the different elements of the piece told the story clearly enough and that it didn’t need to be replicated visually in that way. It’s far more powerful to suggest an imminent threat than to be literal about these things.’ Fry’s soundscape is at times almost subliminal as it creates the different worlds of Iraq and Scotland. ‘It’s a great play to work on,’ Fry says, ‘because there are moments of extreme subtlety and moments when you can really go for broke.’

‘My idea of hell,’ says Tiffany, ‘was to put on a piece of theatre which concluded with the fact that it was wrong to invade Iraq. Both Greg and I agreed we would tell the story that we discovered. The idea of being a soldier is very alien to me, and I’ve judged them quite harshly in the past. But when you meet these soldiers, you come away with a sense that they are worthy of our respect. If the Government insists on waging these wars, then somebody has to go out there and die. I’ve been very torn throughout; it’s incredible that we’ve managed to find a way to translate that to a stage so that audiences go on that journey as well.’

‘Black Watch’ opens at the Barbican Theatre on June 21.