Black Watch

ScottishFest '08 continued last night as Scottish Lass, Scottish Dad and I went to St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn to see "Black Watch."  The show is a production of the two year old National Theatre of Scotland (Motto - "Hae a wee dram and a drama, ye crabbit get") and it is simply one of the best things I've seen in the theater in New York.  It is the story of the Royal Highland Regiment, known as the Black Watch because of its dark tartan and its mission to "watch" the Highlands, and its final mission as an independent regiment in Iraq.

The acting is superb.  In fact, it is so seamless that I kept forgetting that these weren't real veterans on stage.  The direction and music took full advantage of the possibilities of live theater. And the story itself was moving without being maudlin or polemical.  Scottish Dad, not the type to display emotion openly, was clearly a little snuffled up at the end when the bagpipes started.  (I can't blame him.  Bagpipes, like church organs, go right to my heart and make me weepy almost instantly.)

The show is on until December 21st, so if you can swing a ticket do not fail to go and see it.