Black Watch

National Theatre of Scotland's senses-pummeling, intensely thrilling martial drama—distilled by playwright Gregory Burke from interviews with Scottish ex-infantrymen—doesn't settle for easy pacifist positions, but draws the line at the mess in Iraq. The sheer physical bravado and endurance of the ensemble (directed by John Tiffany) is exhilarating, and the language is starkly beautiful, even when bobbing in a swamp of obscenities.—David Cote