Black Watch!

Yayyyyyy!!! I was stoked for another theater show. This was called Black Watch and was performed by the Scottish Theater.
Scottish accents are difficult to decipher, yo.
But, seriously, it was probably one of if not the most moving plays I've ever seen. It was just so relevant to our times, I was completely enthralled. The show used minimal props, and heavy theatrics, almost as a reaction against popular cinematic narratives. The stage was set in between two blocks of audience, heightening the awareness of the presence of theater. And, it was like movement was the driving force of artistic aesthetic and concept. Here's what I got from certain scenes:

The part where the one of the soldiers was speaking a monolouge about the history of the Scottish army. As he moved through eras, the other soldier characters were dressing him in traditional ceremonial military uniforms, dressing and undressing fluidly through the whole scene. It was this weird mix of being informational but also depicting the strange identity that soldier have. The soldier is dressed by tradition, proud of it, but almost consumed by it nonetheless.

Another part was when the soldiers had all recieved letters from home. We were all expecting to be read the letters or at least see descriptive reactions to them. But we weren't given that. All the soldiers after reading, went by themselves to different places onstage and began making gestures with their hands very close to their bodies. Sign language. It was beautiful and entrancing and frustrating all at once. I felt that it parallelled the way in which a soldier may tell his story. The journalist asked them, "What was it like to see your friends die around you?" "It was fucking weird." It's an answer, a true answer, but theres a disconnect. We are only spectators, and there will always be that disconnect.

My favorite scene was at the very beginning when the soldiers began telling their story to the journalist. Everyone left stage, and the pool table remained onstage. Suddenly a knife breaks through the red fabric from the inside, and two soldiers crawl out and begin moving in a combat-type way. In the conceptual corner of my brain, I saw it as this image where they were breaking through an amniotic bloody skin. Aggressively pushing through, birthing themselves. It's this universal thing where a person's first experience with violence and how they handle it, births them into the person they are.
The play definitely inspired me to bond with my Granda more and as soon as possible. He grew up on the Irish countryside by Limerick, and had moved to London for work when he was about my age. When he was 26 I think, he was drafted into the British Army for 6 years during World War II. Last time I visited he really opened up, and listed all the places he went in sequence. My mom recorded it. She was astounded, he had never told her these things when she was growing up, and he's telling me now.